Lock’s restaurant, once an old Dublin haunt for well-heeled corporate diners has changed hands and is now beloved of people who crave that indefinable thing called Modern Irish Cuisine.

Troy Maguire, formerly of L’Gueuleton, the french bistro-style restaurant off Georges Street in the city centre is chef patron and also part owner. His success at his previous restaurant, where the excellent food sat comfortably in the French oeuvre, has led him to be a little too confident in his choices at this new venue. While his affection for Irish food and small Irish producers is genuine, he needs to be more circumspect about marrying them with world flavours in his recipes and see that less in this case is more.

There are two rooms, one downstairs which houses the waiting area and one upstairs which presumably doubles up as a function room. Both are light and airy, all pale creams and tongue and groove and a bar at the front soothes early diners and late wine-rs, those who linger afterwards for a glass of something when they have to accede their early sitting table to a night owl who arrives to eat at 9pm.

Undoubtedly the elegant room, the comfortable seating, the amiable good-looking staff and the soft Dublin evening light that bleeds across your table from the adjacent swan-filled canal are all perfect. It makes the food all the more unfortunate.

There are restaurants that can have a bad night and all you can reasonably do before you review it is to return again and hope for a better one. There is no point in doing that with Lock’s because from the first plate that arrived to our table, it became clear that this chef, though well-meaning, has lost his way.

We were two so we shared everything. The waitress helpfully gave us extra plates.

We began with the signature dish of Black Pudding and Apple Tart Tatin with Leek, Port and Pommeray Mustard (14 euro). We couldn’t see it at first. It arrived smothered in a triangular cone of green leaves which had wilted miserably on the heated dish. We parted the fringe of greenery and underneath was a round pastry pudding, glazed with honey and wholegrain mustard softened from the moisture of the salad dressing and from being buried under a bush. A quick flick upwards with the knife gave us a glimpse of its underbelly. Nope. No glistening fruity glazed underside on this tarte tatin. The pastry travelled all the way round. It looked like a British suet pudding enclosing its fractious sibling, the Irish black pudding. The dressed leaves sitting on the pastry softened it so that it had lost crispness. The pudding itself was excellent and the hint of apple pleasing but the balance was faulty and by the time I had finished half, I surrendered. The kick of the mustard was too acidic and the black pudding too dense. My eating partner ate almost all the other half.

The second starter we chose was Spiced Chickpea with Honey Roast Pear, Blue Cheese, Fig and Walnuts. (15.50 euro). The chickpea salad had also been buried alive in greenery which would have made more sense if it did not also arrive on a heated plate. It had a good zesty dressing and the whole walnuts scattered through it were some of the best I have eaten. The caramelised pear was soft and delicious but it had the disappointed demeanour of a piece of fruit that had been prepped earlier and left aside like a poor relation until assembly time. Somewhere in the mix there were some dainty asian mushrooms which had stopped off in the Mediterranean on their way to Ireland from China. It was a good dish and with a little more care, could have been worth the money we paid for it.

The main courses read like a hymn to fine Irish ingredients. We chose the Rare Breed Pork with Cabbage at 28.50 euro and Seabream with Bouillabaisse Sauce, Saffron Potatoes, Fennel and Smoked Paprika Aioli (29.90 euro). The pork chop was hefty and from a happy pig. It had a juicy roll of fat on one side and a thick girth. A trip to Weightwatchers would have been in order if it hadn’t given up its life for our enjoyment. It sat on a bed of the strangest set of ingredients I have encountered in what was essentially a classic Irish piece of cooking. Baby carrots (unpeeled because it is fashionable to do so but please cut out the dirty green ring at the top please) sat on top of soft over-cooked cabbage shreds and next to soggy squared-off thin potato slices emerging out of an indiscriminate brown sauce. And I kid you not: on the side was a slow-cooked baby bright red tomato half and a slice of fig that re-appeared from the chickpea salad from the first course. It looked as if it had lost its way in the kitchen and someone had decided that it was easier to dump it on our plate than to admit they had forgotten to include it in another course. What other explanation could there be? I nearly cried but battled through to save the pork from further ignominy. Once I extracted it from the sludgy vegetables beneath, I ate it with relish and celebrated its life.

The second main course of wild seabream had been tamed by overcooking. One side of the fish was so crispy and brown it looked like a slice of bread that had been too long in the toaster. The moat of Bouillabaisse sauce which surrounded the fish and held the vegetables had a hint of fish but otherwise tasted and looked like a badly executed tomato sauce. The saffron potatoes hid with shame. Peeping over the miniscus was an unpeeled baby carrot. In there too were some more of the Chinese mushrooms that appeared in the first course. Why?

This is where authentic slowfood becomes lazy food. Just because you list the suppliers, use the word organic (and charge for it, a side order of organic vegetables is 6.90 euro) and use artisan ingredients doesn’t mean you have permission to betray them.

The dessert offered no respite: we shared another bizarre combination of ingredients of dull dry mini-fingers of Carrot and Ginger Cake (8 euro) accompanied by Rum and Raisin Icecream and mandarin orange segments that looked tinned but were actually moulded shells made of Cointreau Jelly. It takes a particular kind of mind to take perfectly good ingredients and turn them into something that looks post-war and that we especially go to restaurants to avoid. There were other things on the plate too but my mind closed down and I stopped counting.

The wine list is expensive given that the average off-licence purchase is probably 12 euro - it’s hard to find a bottle for under 30 euro and the wines are not priced in order so the small niggling worry arises that you may choose a wine for 48 euro and ask for the one underneath for seventy-five instead.

Service was proficient and courteous and we left a decent tip. The other diners seemed genuinely happy and there was a lovely atmosphere when we visited on a Friday night. Though we were due to relinquish our table at 9.15pm, in the end we kept it for the evening. Downstairs had a nice mix of young men impressing girlfriends, gourmet food enthusiasts and ageless middle-class south Dubliners who still enjoy an evening out. All this restaurant is missing is restraint and bravery: the restraint to stop adding world ingredients and flavours to traditional modern Irish food and the bravery to sally forth and allow the finest artisan Irish ingredients to sing at the top of their voice, simply and brilliantly on both plate and palate.

Drinks: We drank a bottle of Domaine de Fondréche Persia Blanc which was sprightly and clean and very drinkable - it cost 43 euro. We also had one glass of Gigondas for 12 euro. We had one cup of coffee at a reasonable 2.50 euro.

The total bill for two came to 153.40 euro plus tip.

Locks Restaurant, 1 Windsor Terrace, Portobello , Dublin 8

www.locksrestaurant.ie/