What is it about fish? Anything you read these days about food intake tells you that fish is crucial for a properly balanced diet. It's an essential source of omega oils, it's been shown to be vital for the proper development of the brain - yet it remains largely unappreciated and largely uneaten in this island. It's a puzzle to be sure, the only answer that I can come up with as to why that's the case is that fish may still be associated with penitential Fridays.

You could argue that fish is an acquired taste; certainly it's true that trying to get fish down the throats of the young is a thankless task, unless the fish is in the shape of a breaded finger. On the continent, especially in Italy, Portugal and Spain, fish forms a major part of the daily diet. It's appreciated, it's cooked well and in many cases costs more than meat. In Italy fish is what you prepare for the honoured guest, it has kudos, it's the expensive choice in restaurants. Any seaboard town - either on the Atlantic seaboard or the Mediterranean - will have a variety of restaurants that specialise in fish, yet here you'd be hard put to find one. Dublin must be the only European capital city that doesn't have a fish restaurant in the city centre. Well, it didn't until Alex came along.

Alex is the new restaurant in The Conrad Hotel, so now there is a fish restaurant in the city centre. I'd arranged to meet my friend Michael Colgan and his now constant companion Noelle McCarthy there, and I was looking forward to it as I haven't seen either of them for a while, and besides, I like fish. I met up with Noelle and we found our table at Alex, with the plan now that Michael would join us there. In the end he never did, so Noelle and I had a very pleasant diner a deux.

The dining room is classic hotel chic, by which I mean if you were led into it blindfolded, you'd know you were in a hotel dining room when the blind came off. It's a long room on two levels, one side is glass looking out over the hotel plaza, the other has a long counter, no doubt for the buffet breakfast. The tables are big and prettily set and the chairs are well-upholstered and comfortable.

The menu opens with this: 'At Alex we know that the best seafood needs little adornment.' Now that's a ballsy statement. I agree with it whole-heartedly, but it takes courage to do something simply, especially when you're charging for it. Yet it's true, why would you want to do much to a fresh piece of fish? In a perfect world you can't actually improve on the fish's own natural flavour, you let it speak for itself.

The menu doesn't follow the usual shape of starters and main courses, but instead lists dishes some of which are starters, some of which are main courses, and some of which can be had as either. There were a few things listed that I wanted to try, a task which was made simpler by the entry on the menu called 'A taste of Alex' - a starter at €18 which gave me three different starters all in one. So we ordered this mix - the sea asparagus salad as a starter for Noelle, which she followed with zander, while I started with the brown shrimp risotto and followed with the Taste of Alex starter as my main course.

There's a fairly extensive wine list which comes with a mark-up much closer to 200% than 100%. That seems to be about standard for luxury hotels, but it does mean that there isn't much to be had for under €30. I picked out a decent white Crozes Hermitage from Chapoutier for us, which was listed at €36.

Our two starters were really good; Noelle's sea asparagus had a lovely flavour of smoked garlic and it came with a salad of organic leaves and roasted tomatoes. My brown shrimp risotto was perfectly cooked Arborio rice with potted shrimp stirred through it. So on to mains. Noelle had chosen the zander, which is a freshwater water fish also called the pike-perch. Before I describe it, it's worth noting that I haven't ever seen zander on an Irish menu before, or indeed perch, which was also on Alex's menu.

Freshwater fish tends to be less tasty than saltwater fish - maybe simply because of the lack of salt - but Noelle's dish of zander was a delight, a touch of lime really brought out the fish's flavour. My dish was a plate in three sections, which allowed me to taste the risotto again, the calderada - which is a Portuguese fish stew - and a seared scallop as well. Light, not filling, and with enough flavours to keep me happy.

We did just about manage a dessert between us, which we followed with a couple of espressos. If you really can't eat fish, there is a page for carnivores on the menu, but Alex is essentially a restaurant for people who enjoy fish. The bill, including a few mineral waters, came to just under €130.

It's that time of year again, so if you know a charismatic, professional, dedicated young restaurant manager (under 35), why not nominate them for the Rosemount Young Restaurant Manager competition? Nomination forms can be got from Grants of Ireland Limited, tel. 01-6304100.