Madam, - Moira Cardiff (September 26th) chastises your restaurant critic for spending €471 on a dinner for two at Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud. This is indeed quite a lot of money but it is hardly "shameful" (how much more were the golfing pundits paying for a day at the Ryder Cup, in Kildare, last weekend). Your critic quite rightly stated that spending this kind of money "is up to you and your priorities".
I think Ms Cardiff misses the point completely. Comparatively speaking, Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud is not out of line with other establishments elsewhere graced with two Michelin stars. In fact, for what is on offer, it compares very favourably on price to similar restaurants in Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the UK.
Furthermore, for more than 25 years, Patrick Guilbaud and his team consistently have raised standards in Dublin's restaurant business, which before his emergence in the Irish market were, in general, rather challenged.
If the cited "education assistant" on €402.36 a week across the road at the National Museum were willing to part with €33.00, he or she could avail of what must be one of the best gastronomic bargains available anywhere: lunch at Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud.
Finally, to answer Ms Cardiff's question, what has happened to the Irish, over the past 25 years, is that more and more as a population (as opposed to an élite), we have become capable of appreciating fine dining. This is obviously a corollary to other contemporary sociological change.
Ireland's culinary evolution would have been far less radical without Patrick Guilbaud's pursuit of gastronomic excellence and the work of his gifted colleagues. - Is mise,
MARTIN KINSELLA, Luxembourg.