First Floor Restaurant & Bar, Harvey Nichols

The First Floor at Harvey Nichols has a lot going for it. The location is terrific – right beside the Luas and with plenty of easy parking. Dundrum Town Centre looks fabulous in the lead up to Christmas. The bar is groovy in a lounge lizard kind of a way that manages not to seem pretentious (perhaps because the footie was on the telly on the night that we visited) and the restaurant itself is a wonderful high-ceilinged room with well-chosen furniture, a wall of twinkling LED lights and a stripy carpet that looks like a Paul Smith shirt. It's probably the most glamorous restaurant in Dublin, and should appeal particularly to gals with a hankering for a touch of SATC highlife after a hard day at the mall-face.

We started with a round of cocktails. The elderflower edge (€15) sounds innocent – Wyborowa vodka, elderflower cordial and muddled cucumber, finished off with HN own label champagne – but beware: it packs a punch. Delicious.

Harvey Nicks has stepped up to the mark and is doing its bit for the beleaguered masses by offering a €45 three-course table d'hotel menu. There's an à la carte menu available too but, with starters on that ranging from yellow fin tuna niçoise with tempura anchovy and cherry tomato gazpacho at €16, to carpaccio and tartar of Wagyu Beef, Parmesan mousse and tempura of onion at €17, and mains averaging €28, we decided to go for the economy option.

On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, there's a good money-saving wheeze in the offer of wine at wine shop prices, which means a 50% discount on every bottle on the list. Our waiter suggested that we might consider the Château Pétrus 1990 at a bargain €6,000 (down from its usual €12,000) but thankfully we had enough of our wits about us despite the cocktails and opted for a decent Sancerre André Dezat 2006 (€22.50) and a fine Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Boscarelli 2005 (€29.50).

The set menu doesn't offer much choice, there are two options per course. We began with a little amuse- bouche of a smoked salmon mousse with a citrus foam, and progressed to starters of fragrant crab tart, tomato jelly, leek purée and gazpacho essence with ballotine of confit duck and foie gras, marinated apple and aged balsamic. Chef Thomas Haughton is clearly striving for artistry with his presentation – the portions are small and everything looks beautiful (some might say fussy). There were no complaints. For mains, the choice is between fillet of Angus beef, butter-roasted potato, autumn caramelised root vegetable and red wine reduction; and pan-fried Atlantic hake, saffron mousseline, sauce vierge, black olive tapenade – basically steak or fish. Apart from a mix-up about how one of the fillets was cooked – it arrived medium-well when it had been ordered medium-rare, was sent back and returned cooked even more – which was remedied with a gracious bottle of wine on the house, the food was well-received, if not raved over. Homemade chips and steamed vegetables with herb butter were both exemplary. HN vanilla crème brûlée, nage of berries and fresh mint was a big hit all round, and a cheese plate (attracting a supplement of €4.50) was in excellent condition.

This is where I climb back up onto my hobby horse. You know what I'm going to say. The bill for five of us – on a Wednesday night, remember, eating from the set menu, with two bottles of half-price wine – came to €388.93, including 12.5% discretionary service. That's over €75 per head. You can eat a five-course early bird at Dylan McGrath's Mint – and he has a Michelin star! – for only €10 more than the First Floor charges for three courses. If the food were cheaper, and personally I'd prefer it simpler, this wonderful room would be full of punters. There, I've said it.