There are some weeks that just seem to have more fun bits built into them than others. Take this last one for instance. In the space of five days we'd enjoyed Brian Friel's new play 'Performances', the gala launch of 'Peter and the Wolf' by Bono and Gavin Friday, a really long lunch (just over twelve hours) with old friends, a lunch the following day to celebrate the return to Dublin of my old pal Dillie Keane and Fascinating Aida for the Theatre Festival, and then a Michelin-starred lunch as well. Any more weeks like this and I may never recover from the hyper-indulgence. Just to place this week in its historical context, it was the cuspal September/October week that perpetuated the 'summer-that-would-not-die-of-2003' - the same week that the publicans of the Kingdom of Kerry decided that whatever Minister Medical Martin was doing in Dublin about smoking and pubs, it had nothing to do with them.

I'll admit that although I'm no longer a smoker, I did feel a sneaky twinge of admiration for them. Any person or group that stands up to government by diktat gets my vote. The problem of course is that no one asks you to vote on government by diktat; it just happens, as in a pronouncement <it>ex cathedra. Just like Medical Martin and the smoking ban or Michael Woods doing a doozy of a deal with the religious orders. You and me were never consulted because, the practice would appear to suggest, those who govern us know much more about what's good for us than we do. As McGonnegal famously remarked, 'a hae ma doots.'

Anyway, I went off to meet my friend Pat, who works in the to-me-mysterious world of finance. It's not that I can't add, I can, it's just that I still don't really understand how you sell futures in things that you don't actually possess. But then, it's just as likely that to Pat a béchamel is as mysterious as a financial instrument is to me. So there we were in Dublin's latest addition to the Michelin stars, L'Ecrivain. By the way, if you've ever wondered why they use a plume as a logo, it's because the name means 'writer' in French. After some major renovations L'Ecrivain is now well settled into its new clothes, downstairs there's a piano bar and a private dining room, upstairs you'll find the main dining room, and up again in the loft area there is (for the moment anyway) a smoking area.

Like any expensive restaurant the room is beautifully finished, all the tableware and crockery is the sort of stuff you'd be happy to show off with at home. There's a high ceiling, lots of daylight and plenty of space between the tables for Dublin's shirts and ties to have discrete conversations without fear of ear-wigging. Set aside some time for the wine list, it's very long and you need time to choose. Alternatively you could place yourself in Martina the sommelier's hands, she knows the list through and through and can tell you what you need to know about each and every wine. At first glance you notice that the base-line appears to be high at around €30, but closer inspection reveals that these are not cheap wines heavily marked up, but good wines at a reasonable mark up given your surroundings. We settled on a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc that Pat had had before, a crisp, clean-tasting wine at €34.

The lunch menu carries two options; you can choose from the a la carte, or from a table d'hote. The set menu gives you the choice of two courses for €30 or three courses for €35. I'd suggest this much: if you choose anything other than the two course option, make sure you have more than an hour for lunch. This is not the kind of food that ought to be in any way hurried. Assuming your afternoon is totally free from appointments there is yet another option, the one that Pat and I chose in the end. You can let L'Ecrivain put a tasting menu together for you. This is a €60 option, but if you wanted to experience a complete showcase of the signature dishes, this is the one to go for.

I'm not going to bore you with a litany of delights. The tasting menu was eight courses of perfectly cooked, flavoured, and presented dishes that were essentially faultless. Each course was carefully crafted and presented in its own distinct serving dish - wonderfully idiosyncratic pieces of crockery designed to display the particular food. What surprised me was not the general level of extreme skill and the pleasures of the palate, but that normally ordinary foods took on extraordinary characteristics. The boiled potatoes were exquisite, the potato orzo (rice-like pellets) verged on the sublime. When did I last find myself enthusing over potatoes?

We finished our lunch with good espressos downstairs in the piano bar. You may consider what follows as pushing out the boat a little too much, but I enjoyed it. There is a display there of venerable Armagnacs, one for every year going back to the nineteen-thirties. Unless you're elderly you can find the year of your birth and check out if the Armagnac is bearing up as well as you are. Pat was unwilling to disclose his birth year, but I found mine - the year of the ox - and found it to be rather more youthful than I am. Depending on the age, a glass of this nectar is your for €30 or €35.

A €60 menu and a €30 wine are elements of an expensive meal. It isn't the sort of meal that you can have once a week. But the truth is that a meal like this is better value than a cheap and nasty one. Here at least, your every forkful is a delight.