There are boats on the river in between, a smell of money in the air. The sun was shining the day we were there, though that may not always be the case. I haven't been there all that often, but I don't remember Athlone being like this.

The Left Bank is owned by two women, one Irish, one Australian. They originally opened in 1995 and in 2000 moved to this location. They do a steady lunch trade during the day serving extravagant sandwiches and salads for not very extravagant prices.

They sell their own dressings, sauces and bread from a deli on site.

It looks small from outside and not terribly interesting, but the inside has been done with a lot of style, a happy compromise between old and new. The room is big and open, white walls, wooden tables and chairs and a good-looking bar with clever lighting that creates an atmosphere of relaxed luxury without seeming formal. The music is a shade louder than you might expect.

We arrived at half-six and they were a third full. Over the course of the next two hours the place filled up with families and work groups out on a Friday night. By the time we left it was buzzing.

They do an early bird menu, three courses for 25, but we went a0 la carte. The food shops around in terms of its influences. There's a strong Asian flavour in some things, Italian in others but they don't cross over within the individual dishes. They have a separate menu for fish, which is something that they seem to take seriously.

We were brought good homemade brown bread first. A salad of artichoke and shaved Parmesan came with a light lemon and mustard dressing, straightforward but very nicely done. Shredded duck was cooked with chilli and oyster sauce and given a bit of crunch with fried noodles. It was a rich sweet combination, well-balanced with a good glow of heat from the chilli.

For the first main course, three pieces of monkfish came with mashed potato beautifully flavoured with green olive and a delicate tarragon cream sauce. My companion made up representative forkfuls and luxuriated in every one of them, before cleaning the plate with her finger. She liked it. For my main course half a duck had been marinated in five spice, soy and honey and then slow roasted, finished at the end under a hot grill. It came with a fragrant sauce of hoi sin, lemongrass, ginger and chilli, fresh enough to cut the sweet fatty richness of the duck, which was melting with flavour. We were brought a portion of fried potatoes, a very good mix of vegetables and an excellent side salad with a sweet garlicky dressing.

We drank a bottle of Four Sisters, a lighter than expected Australian Shiraz from a short, interesting list.

A mixed berry and mascarpone tartlet came with a squiggle of butterscotch sauce and cream and was a lovely mix of sharp, sweet and rich.

The price for all of this was just over 100 which for the food that we ate and the room that we ate it in seemed very reasonable.

There is an ambition and a confidence about this operation, imagination in the far-reaching menu that makes each dish sound interesting and enough ability in the kitchen to deliver on its promise. The service was zippy.

When you look at what they're doing overall I think you can feel their enthusiasm, see what it is that they're trying to do. It's a place that's full of ideas and that, on the basis of our experience, is achieving its aims.