Lucinda O’Sullivan’s restaurant review: Peggy’s On The Green brought me back to the days when food in Ireland was abysmal

Reminding her of a holiday tourist trap, our critic was left unimpressed by her visit to Dublin’s new Peggy’s On The Green

"Stiff as a board, overcooked to a state of rigor mortis, this sad sea bass fillet sat on a three-storey plinth of tasteless, skin-on 'baby boiled' (potatoes) which, in an attempt to be stylishly 'crushed', looked as if they’d been stood on with a size 12 boot." Photo: Lucinda O'Sullivan

Lucinda O'Sullivan

​Was I on the set of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, I wondered on my visit to the new Peggy’s On The Green in Dublin? Five minutes in, and before we’d taken a sip of our cocktails, in a room full of empty tables we were asked had we chosen our food yet, adding that they needed our table back by 7.15pm.

Rolling up in a taxi to meet my friend Trish for an early dinner, the exterior of the former Three Storey had been festooned with great big green and gold balls heralding the rebrand. A Guinness umbrella was up, and a girl stood, somewhat incongruously, on the street in the rain handing out free drinks vouchers for “Dublin’s Newest Restaurant and Parlour Bar”, immediately reminding me of tacky tourist resorts abroad. It was only short of having the Star-Spangled Banner and the tricolour waving outside.