So you watch Masterchef Ireland, and it features a number of mid-range Dublin restaurants it rates as having achieved the gold standard for the trade, and you are impressed with Coppinger Row, not just for how the food looks but for the food attitude that seems to exude from the place - the love for it, the passion, the excellence with which it appears to be delivered.
And you finally get to go there. And what you find is so different to expectation that you don't fully even realise the experience you've had until you leave to go, with a sinking feeling of disappointment in the pit of your tummy, and an uneasy sense of having bought into an idea, then sold down the Swanee.
It seems these days that the coolest of Dublin restaurants no longer take small-party bookings. They obviously don't have to - and when business is thriving you can do what you want, right?
So you wait, 20 minutes after the allocated 30 minute time, but all is good. You've a glass of delicious prosecco in hand, and no one is complaining. You're finally seated, and service is reasonably quick, if a little impersonal.
After a shared selection of starters, myself and another of our group opted for a rib-eye steak that was on special, which the waiter advised we should have medium done (we asked for medium rare) - something to do with rendering fat and a more palatable eating experience. Fine by us. Though the steak that came was actually medium rare in my book - very red in the middle - and, as mouthful after mouthful delivered to my increasing disappointment, more fat than meat. Very disappointing.
The dish came with an over-large pile of lettuce which was unappetising, and unexpected - we wouldn't have ordered a green salad had we known, but the waiter did not think to mention it (no great worry, though, as the salad never arrived).
When you are out with good friends you haven't seen in ages, on a long-overdue night away from small kids and family commitments, the last thing anyone wants to do is complain, and risk putting a dampner on a night which anyway is more focussed on friendship and fun than fine dining.
But if plates go back to the kitchen with most of the food still on them, a shrewd waiter will ask if there has been a problem. Here there were no questions asked.
As the at first very busy restaurant emptied out, we spied our neighbours having Irish coffees, and decided we'd have a drink for the road. Though the front door was at this stage open and a cold breeze was blowing in, so we might have guessed that Coppinger Row was more intent on emptying out its stragglers than checking if they wanted something to drink. When we asked, they were pretty resolute in assuring us that the bar was closed - it was around 11.30 in fairness - but there were a number of people at the bar with drinks in hand, and it honestly seemed a little churlish and unfriendly to not take our drinks order - we'd just spent 280 euros between four of us aside from anything.
After paying, though, one of our party examined the bill closer. Two dishes had been charged that hadn't arrived. The green salad and the green beans. I think the icing on the stale cake was the waiter questioning our querying of it: 'Are you sure you didn't get them? I took your order and it was definitely on it.' Eh, yes, we're sure. Eight euros unceremoniously landed back on our table a few minutes later, with what I assume was an apology, muttered a little too low to quite catch it.
Something began to crystallise in my mind as we took our cue to leave. It was in the impersonal attitude of the staff. It was in the slightly glazed cheeriness of the maitre d, the over-confident buzz that never quite seemed to connect. It was in the not-good-enough food (that had started off promising with nice starters, to their credit). It was in the overly-low lighting that makes it hard to see the food, to know you're about to land your mouth with another bite of inedible fat that you will dispose of into a napkin. It was in that lurking hunch that you had to 'be' somebody, or 'know' somebody, to avail of that last drink. Somewhere along the line, Coppinger Row has lost sight of what they profess to being all about. They've started to believe their own hype. And a standard-eroding self-satisfaction has crept in. read more