But then that turns out to be all wrong. At night, with its tree-lined avenues and flood-lit buildings, Inchicore village was looking pretty spruce.

Just up from the crossroads occupying the street-level space of a modern building is Enoteca Torino, the most recent addition to Mick Wallace's stable and the first to open beyond the city centre.

Directory enquiries didn't have the number for this place, nor for the original Enoteca della Langhe in town and Google wasn't coming up with much. This meant that we arrived at a quarter past seven on a torrential Wednesday night without a booking. Hardly going to be a problem, I thought like a fool. Of course it nearly was. The only table available was a high one with well-sprung barstools that sighed and hissed as we moved on them. Well you'd hardly blame them.

It did mean that we had an advantage of altitude over our fellow diners, looking down on them and across the small square room, trying to figure out why the place would be booked out on a night like this.

It's nicely decorated, simple style, wine racks on the high walls, quite tight on space. The vast majority of the clientele were women, out in twos and threes for an early and, as we later discovered, inexpensive meal. The menu is in the same style as Wallace's other places, a few mixed plates of meat and cheese, a couple of paninis and a short selection of pasta dishes.

The wine list is short and all-Italian. You order starters and wine from the first server, then another comes around with a display plate of available dried pastas. She lists off a selection of ingredients and base sauces and you choose the way you want them combined. She'll give you hints if you've forgotten all but the last thing that she's said. That's all there is to it.

We had a medium selection board, five or six types of cheese, including Provolone, Pecorino and a salty mild blue, two pestos, four types of salami, a mix of radicchio and lollo rosso.

There were bread sticks wrapped at one end in melting smoky lardo, the Italian delicacy that takes pig fat and, after marinating and aging, ends up with not a whole lot more. Apart from subtle flavour and silky texture. I ate both of them, the first by accident before I knew what was going on and the second deliberately, not caring that we become what we eat, especially when what we eat is lard. The quality and selection of both cheese and meat was high given that the lot cost 9.50. Bread was brought and topped up, Italian style, for free.

My companion had tagliatelle with sausage and porcini in a tomato and basil sauce, while I had seafood ravioli in a vegetable cream.

The sausage combination was good basic stuff, the flavours of basil and rosemary and garlic coming through, the porcini giving the dish a nice earthy weight.

The seafood ravioli was even better though, with white crabmeat providing the base filling for slippy al dente pillows of fresh pasta in a creamy sauce with courgette and aubergine, cut with fresh herbs and lemon. Very good. Both dishes were properly cooked, with maybe some allowance made for Irish tastes in terms of the sauce to pasta ratio.

We drank a Nebbiolo from Lombardy, a dark juicy tannic thing that at 27.50 seemed like great value.

Espresso was authentically short, chocolate cake was sweet and the bill for everything came to 66.

All the staff were Italian, efficient and friendly, talking to each other and to customers with a loud ironic theatricality and confidence that makes you feel like you're one of Cromwell's Puritan soldiers . . .

mumbling as if in prayer, dressed in rags, bad hair. A colourful experience in a monochrome world.

Apparently it's full every night. Good quality, low prices. If you build it they will come.

WHAT'S THE DEAL?

Highlight Quality, value, atmosphere Lowlight Booking essential Medium mixed board 9.50 Pasta with sausage and porcini 10.00 Seafood ravioli 11.00 Chocolate cake 4.00 2 x double espresso 4.40 Triacca Sassella, Valtelina Superiore 2002 27.50 Total: 66.40 Enoteca Torino 9 Grattan Crescent Inchicore Dublin 8 Tel. : 01 453 7791