THIS is the type of restaurant I which I would want to eat in if I was going out for the night," says John Dunne, head chef at Morels Bistro, in Glasthule. "I want good food, good atmosphere, I want the service to be good but informal, I want seasonal food which is freshly cooked and I want it to be affordable."
And so say all of us. John Dunne's formula for the ideal restaurant may sound like a pipe, dream but, of course, it isn't. Each night of the week he and his boss, Alan O'Reilly, make this dream real.
In Morels they cook dinner and Sunday lunch for more then 600 people through the seven days, people who want the spiffing formula which Mr Dunne describes, and who find it in here, in a local bistro, upstairs from a pub on the main street of Glasthule. Every village should have one.
From the day it opened its doors, Morels has been the hottest thing on the southside. Like an successful restaurant in the new age of eating out, it has not tapped into any formula but, in its refinement and reading of current ideas, it has forged a new mould.
"It's back to basics, and it's honest," says Mr Dunne, a Glasthule version of chic simple spiced Thai soup confit of salmon with spinach and a tomato dressing breast of duck with citrus sauce and thyme roast lamb with basil mashed potatoes, confit of garlic and French beans praline parfait with a caramel sauce dark chocolate terrine with espresso sauce. You can have an early dinner for £12.50, lunch on Sunday for a quid less, and three orders from the a Ia carte will leave change from £25.
As John Dunne explains. "Morels is a bistro in name only. Everything from breads to ice cream is freshly made, and while I have to work within my budget we can offer everything from a caesar salad to a risotto to turbot, whatever you want. We don't do foie gras, we don't have wild mushrooms or truffles, but we try to have the food that people want."
But if Morels is a success because it is the sort of place you can drop into on a whim even with the kids and find that the food is always real, always enjoyable, it also shows the discrimination which is at play in the villages of south Dublin.
People come here because of what is on the plate, and for the confident, fun atmosphere. The only status symbol which eating in Morels bestows on you is the fact that you know and appreciate good food and good value.
Like the other great success stories of the late 1980s and early 1990s Elephant & Castle in the village of Temple Bar, and Roly's in the village of Ballsbridge it succeeds because it attracts people" again and again, the serial restaurant eaters for whom restaurants are about food and ambience, and who are unimpressed solely by glam or grandeur. The fact that it is such a central part of the village seems especially important also, the local place for the local people.
"It's democratic food says John Dunne.
This democracy works because in the modern world people will often choose where and what they want to eat only after they have clocked off from work, and it is then when they make their choices. This is the market from which the local traders such as Napoleon of Monkstown, Butler's Pantry, Pamel Black's much missed Bia Bien, and the Queen's Food Shop at Glenageary, as well as newcomers such as Dining In, in the Nutgrove shopping Centre, draw their trade. It means also that Glasthule can boast other restaurants, such as Bistro Vino and the relaxed Odeil's.
But Morels works because, in a delicious nutshell, it gives the people what they want, a mantra of service which has directed the efforts of the Caviston brothers' delicatessen, directly across the road.
Caviston's is one of those shops which seems to be a bedrock of the village, its constant innovations and developments as much a theme of the place as its friendliness and expertise. "We have to respond to what the customers want, and they want the things they find abroad when they are on holiday. Plus, we have to stay ahead of the supermarkets," they say.
Staying ahead doesn't seem to be a problem for Caviston. The lunchtime queue to buy its rolls and sandwiches is dauntingly large, with folk from every walk of elite picking and choosing what they want to eat. In each department of the shop, from the fish counter to the meat counter, the teas, coffees and oils, the vegetables and the choice jars, right through to the great birds which hang outside here at Christmas, Caviston's is virtually a one stop shop Stephen and Peter Caviston are on the verge of expanding seven further their celebrated deli, by opening a seafood bar to serve meals between noon and 6p.m.
It's a development which, says the deli manager Ian Walker, "arose from listening to the customers and learning that this is what they want. Somewhere to sit down and somewhere that does fast speciality food a plate of prawns, smoked salmon, mussels, a salmon and crab pate. We wanted to get away from the idea of a coffee bar, and cook speciality foods".
But as Caviston's is slowly transforming itself into a total shop and restaurant, just a little further inland another of the great Co Dublin specialists works at his trade with the zeal of an inventor, in a shop the modesty of which is startling.
Ed Hick took over his father Jack's butcher's shop in Stillorgan a few years back, and while he has continued the family theme of superb meat and excellent service, it has been his innovations with pork charcuterie in recent years that has made Hick's someplace unique.
He smokes wonderful black and white puddings, prepares a great smoked kassler belly and has the best speciality sausages you can find. In summertime he gets together a complete range of barbecue meats, and now the acquisition of a game licence will allow Mr Hick to exercise his skills on venison salamis, sausages and noisettes.
"The authenticity of the food is what you want to keep a firm hold onto," Ed Hick says. "I know with my sausages, some are big, some are small, some of the smoked kasslers are a little smokier than others, but that is because it's a natural product. For some people that is definitely a selling point, and they come here for that."
