AT Eden, the customer is always right. When Eleanor Walsh took the Eden Smokies . . . moreish smoked haddock, creme fraiche and melted cheddar . . .off the menu, eight weeks after the restaurant had opened, there was uproar. "I was getting phone calls from customers in the restaurant when I wasn't here saying, 'We came for the Smokies, we're leaving, we're not having dinner here until the Smokies are back on, '" the chef recalls. They were reinstated post-haste following this Save the Smokies campaign and a decade later they remain one of the most popular choices at the Temple Bar restaurant.

The other dish that has withstood the test of time and menu shake-ups is the steak with Bearnaise sauce and roast onions. This classic French bistro dish isn't too unusual now, but in 1997 not very many other restaurants were offering it.

Nor did many restaurants look like Eden, with its open kitchen where you could see the chefs hard at work, swimming pool effect tiles and unisex toilets. Ten years on, Eden is still following its credo of serving up simple, Irish, modern food, expertly done.

It's a Dublin institution where you're never quite sure who's going to be sitting at the table next to you. It might be a couple on a date. It could be U2, who've been fans since the early days. It could be a birthday/christening/retirement/graduation party. It might be Gavin Friday or Louis le Brocquy, both of whom are regulars. Walsh agrees that the client base is eclectic. "It's a great mix. People who started going out and dating when Eden opened are now coming back with their children, " she says.

"I think it's got really fond memories for a lot of peoplef they got engaged here or were at a great party here. It's lovely but it's slightly left of centre, it's not directly in the limelight. It kind of feels like home."

To coincide with Eden's 10th birthday this month, Walsh and Eden's head chef Michael Durkin have brought out a cookbook of Eden's dishes, including the infamous Smokies. They had been talking about doing this for five years and the 10th birthday celebrations gave them the impetus they needed. Unlike some restaurant cookbooks, which offer a glimpse into some exclusive, rarefied establishment that most people will never visit, never mind try the recipes (AA Gill's The Ivy: The Restaurant and Its Recipes being a very good example) Walsh and Durkin's book is not destined for coffee tables. "I want this cookbook to be worn and used, with recipe cut-outs and hand-scribbled notes in it. Please use it and pass it on, " she writes in its introduction. It's a comprehensive collection, ranging from basic sauces like Hollandaise to kumquat relish for the more adventurous.

Bread, soup, fish, meat, vegetarian dishes, puddings, cheeses and cocktails all get individual sections, although there is no separate chapter for appetisers.

Walsh believes the way we eat has changed and people are no longer eating a three-course meal, but that most of the dishes can be served in smaller or larger portions, depending on your guests' appetites. Simplicity was her guiding tenet when it came to compiling the book. "I just wanted it to be quite easy to follow and to cut out any of the excess information that often bamboozles people when they're trying to cook."

Eden is only one of many eateries that Walsh has been instrumental in creating, since going into business with Jay Bourke and Eoin Foyle in 1996. She now looks after all the food operations in their many outlets.

Prior to this she had worked for Johnny Cooke and cooked for U2 ("It was fantastic fun! I met load of people, like Mick Jagger.They're really nice guys.") There was a three-and-a-half-year stint as head chef at Eden, before she stepped back and became involved in other food areas. Mick Durkin took over at the restaurant, which she describes as "the best thing that ever happened". She worked on the Bodega in Cork (which they no longer own), then helped set up the Cafe Bar Deli concept, which is now five and a half years old.

It was a novel phenomenon in Dublin dining: reasonably priced, great food, without any pomp and circumstance.

Next came the Market Bar venture on Fade Street, with John Reynolds. Again, this was another innovation for Dublin, with its tapas menu and informal style of eating at long tables in what used to be a sausage factory. "We'd done the Irish things in Eden, Cafe Bar Deli is Mediterranean and I wanted something more hearty and rustic for the Market Bar because I felt that building could really take it, " Walsh says.

In 2005, they took over Bewley's on Grafton Street and Mackerel was born.

"We're surrounded by sea, we've all these tourists coming in and we've got a few great fish restaurants but to have one right in the centre of town I thought was really, really important." The latest venture is Bellinter House, the 37-bedroom country house hotel outside Navan, which opened last year, with another Eden restaurant.

The menu there is the same as in Temple Bar, but with some tweaks. Walsh says that it's not an Eden 2. "I think it's very important that they're first cousins rather than twins, that they both develop. They're both vibrant restaurants but there's a quieter pace in Meath."

Walsh is of the firm belief that everyone can cook, provided you can read and you can follow instructions. "A lot of it is lack of confidence and a lot of people are very impatient. They go, 'Oh, that sounds like it's going to take far too long, I'll just do this insteadf'" Her suggestion to the novice is to build up a level of expertise and an understanding of the science of food.

This is obvious advice but perhaps not for a generation who haven't mastered the basic technique of omelette making, yet expect to be able to rustle up Nigella-style dinner parties with ease. "Start simply, " she says. "If you've never ever cooked, you're not going to start making a Gateau Diane, you won't even know what it is. Make your brown bread; get comfortable with that, then slowly build up your repertoire."

She finds it sad that Irish people have lost so much food knowledge. "I'm not even talking about how to cook, I'm talking about how to eat, which is a much more basic skill than how to cook, " she says. "I think it's beginning to happen again because people are realising that we have so little time that it's important that people sit around the table together, that they share food, that they try and create food together because I think if you do that, it's a very good communication field for a family that may not see each other at all."

Eating together as a great way of finding out what's happening in your children's lives, or even discussing current affairs with them, she says. "You can say the world isn't ending because of 9/11 and talk through things with them. Food is very conducive to that. Obviously, if it comes from the home, like everything else, it's better, but if not, it has to come from the educational system." She would love to see greater food knowledge starting at primary-school level where children can learn about the food pyramid and learn what food choices they can make and how that affects their lives.

She's just back from Australia and, after eating in the acclaimed Tetsuya's in Sydney, thinks that what Dublin needs next is a really good Japanese restaurant. She agrees that the public's appetite for new dining experiences is insatiable at the moment. "It's a reflection of our affluence.

It's a reflection of our travelling and wanting more new and exciting food, " she says.

"Because of the smoking ban, people are more into food and drink together than just drink and that's a really good thing. The restaurant has become more of our social scene than the pub has. Not that you cannot beat a good pubf" If Eden had a character, she thinks it would be "solid, dependable. When it opened first, it was really fashionable and a lot of people came. But a lot of people move onto the next fashionable place. Where are they now? Let me see, they're probably in Venue or waiting for the new Locks to open. And that's great, that's fantastic and I love to see that excitement in Dublin when something new opens. Here, we've got people who love the buzz of Eden but it's not really flashy yet it's still really exciting. You're always going to have a really good time and the service is very good. It's kind of a well-oiled machine that runs like clockwork, we all know what we're doing."

Recipes taken from 'Eden Cookbook' (Gill & MacMillan), by Eleanor Walsh and Michael Durkin, out now

OYSTERS WITH BLOODY MARY GRANITA
Serves 6
300ml good-quality tomato juice
Juice 1 lime
5g caster sugar
1 shot of vodka
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Tabasco

Allow six oysters per person (or an unending supply, if you are in my house). Mix all the ingredients for the granita together in a bowl. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Place in a plastic tray and put in the freezer. Remove from the freezer every hour to mix well with a balloon whisk. It will take about four hours to freeze. Open the oysters and loosen the flesh from the shell. Do not serve oysters if the shell is open, if they look very dry or if they smell off. Place crushed ice or seaweed on a plate, then place oysters on the plate. The granita looks great in shot glasses placed in the centre of the dish.

PAN-FRIED BEEF WITH CHIPS AND BEARNAISE

Serves 4

The beef argument: what cut to serve? I think sirloin has more flavour, fillet is more tender. However, now that t-bone is back on the menu, this is my favourite as you get the best of both and the flavour from the bone.

The choice is yours.

Again, ensure that the beef has been hung for at least 20 days. Build up a good relationship with your butcher, it will serve you well.

Allow 1 red onion per person

Olive oil
salt and pepper
Balsamic vinegar
Allow 2 Maris Piper potatoes per person
Allow 1 x 240g fillet or sirloin of beef per person
Allow 60g Bearnaise Sauce per person

To roast the onions, preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas 6. Peel the red onions and cut in quarters down to the root. Toss in olive oil, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar.

Place on a roasting tray in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Peel and wash the potatoes. Cut into chips using a sharp knife or mandolin.

Dry with kitchen paper. In a deep-sided saucepan or deep fat fryer, heat the oil to 180C/350F. Cook chips and season. You can also par-cook the chips in oil at 130C/265F. This will allow you to cook the chips in advance if doing so for a large group. To do this, cook the chips in advance at 130C/265F, remove and drain on greaseproof paper. Before serving, turn the heat of the fryer up to 180C/350F and brown the chips quickly.

To cook the steak, heat a griddle pan until smoking. Brush with olive oil, season the steaks and place them on the pan.

Brown on all sides. If you are serving the steak more cooked then medium-rare, it is easier to finish cooking them in the oven, as your kitchen will be less smoky and the outside of the steak will not blacken.

To serve, place the chips and steak on a warm plate, put the onions on top of the steak and smother with Bearnaise sauce.

Bearnaise Sauce

Serves 6
50ml tarragon vinegar
2 teaspoons chopped shallots
1 tablespoon chopped tarragon
3 egg yolks
150g butter
1 teaspoon chopped chervil (optional)
Pinch of freshly ground white pepper

In a saucepan over a moderate heat, reduce the vinegar, shallot and tarragon to a tablespoon. Place the egg yolks in a bowl and strain the reduction into the egg yolks and stand the bowl over boiling water. Whisk until it holds a figure 8. What you are doing is cooking the eggs without scrambling them.

Add softened butter, cube by cube, to the egg mix, making sure each is whisked in before you add the next one. Do not rush this stage.

Check seasoning. Covered with cling film and kept warm, this sauce will hold for 90 minutes but ideally should be used as soon as possible. Add the chopped herbs before serving.

MOJITO

Glass: Highball
Garnish: Spring of mint/straws
12 mint leaves
2 shots x Mount Gay golden rum
1 shot x lime juice
1/4 shot x sugar syrup
Top with soda water
Muddle mint in base of glass using a spoon.

Add the rum, lime juice and sugar syrup.

Half-fill the glass with crushed ice and stir.