On one of the warmest evenings of the year, dinner at Oliveto in the Haddington Hotel turned out to be a good idea. The dining room overlooks Dublin Bay and Dun Laoghaire’s East Pier. Not only that, but there’s good cooking in this heavily Italian-accented restaurant; and, let’s face it, that’s not common in hotels.

Executive chef Barry O’Neill comes from Bastible, now Michelinstarred, and Clanbrassil House. Add to that the fact that Oliveto is a favourite pit-stop of outstanding chef Mark Moriarty. All reassuring.

It’s a big, busy, very familyfriendly restaurant and our dinner featured, as one would expect, some ace dishes.

When we tried to order the

Andarl Farm coppa – cured neck of pork from a superb Mayo free-range farm – our waiter steered us firmly but gently towards an unlisted special: bresaola made in-house (€12). Boy, were we glad he did. This traditional Italian dish of thinly sliced cured beef was outstanding, way beyond anything that comes in even the most expensive packet.

It was served with gossamer miniature toasts, so thin they were filigree, with pickled mushrooms, dots of mayo and a little grated summer truffle. Simply perfect in balance and in execution.

Pan-fried squid (€13) was tender and nutty, served with the sharp, spicy hit of fermented chilli sauce and a little lemon and garlic mayo: a very pleasant change from usual, lazy and hackneyed ways with this creature of the deep. I’m still thinking of that fermented chilli in a Homer Simpson-ish way.

Risotto of courgette and basil

(€13) was less successful. Risotto in a restaurant is challenging, of course, and while this one scored reasonably on texture – maybe a 6.5/10 – and colour, a bright green, it was light on flavour. Which is a problem with even the freshest courgettes, and these were definitely of the freshest, including a bright orange flower.

Main courses followed and the star here was from Andarl Farm, in the form of a very slow-cooked shoulder of pork (€27), one of the best bits for flavour if you give it the time it needs. The gravy, or jus as the ‘menuspeak’ has it, was as good as the melting flesh, its distinct sweetness imparted by a pine syrup and apple. This could have been overwhelming and over-rich, but it was very carefully judged and hugely successful, down to the foils of earthy baby turnip and colourful chard. It was a composition.

Squid ink tagliolini (€26) came with lovely sweet little mussels (as against the clams as mentioned on the menu) and fresh Irish crab meat, the whole thing bound together with a light sauce of smoked tomato. Pleasantly savoury – and a little too much on the cool side – this was a dish that didn’t really hang together with none of the lead materials, even the smoked tomato, getting the opportunity to really sing. Was it any hardship, though? No, not at all, but a potentially interesting target was missed. I was somewhat amused by

OUR BRESAOLA STARTER WAS SIMPLY PERFECT IN BALANCE AND IN EXECUTION

the mention of ‘summer tomato’, prompting the question, ‘what other sort is worth cooking with?’ The little tomatoes in question were very good in their own right. I did miss the clams, though. Could they have made all the difference? Possibly.

Whatever about such quibbles, there’s a generosity to the food at Oliveto that left us fit for no more at this stage and we were happy just to have a rest and ordered a brace of espressos. However, our charming waiter insisted on presenting us each with a scoop of divine sorbet: orange and elderflower. The orange element was so bracingly citrussy and attractively bitter that, at first, we thought it might be grapefruit. The elderflower, so often a bit of a thug in asserting itself, was completely buried but we couldn’t give a hoot. This was the perfect palate-cleanser at the end of a rich meal. Sorbets don’t get better than this. Oh, and the texture was spot on, even with a room temperature somewhere in the mid-20s.

Coffee was spot on too, worthy of a bar in Milan. We were still getting a hit almost an hour later.

Oliveto is no bog standard trattoria and no ordinary hotel restaurant. Although not every element in our meal hit the high notes, the high notes that were hit were impressive and memorable.

It has rapidly established itself as a destination, which is handy as the Dart station is within easy walking distance. I should add that Oliveto also has a very strong local reputation for pizza and what I saw of what was on offer looked seriously seductive. There’s a lot of outside seating too.

• Food Travel