We like a chef who is not just talented, but is doing something different, adding something new and interesting to the food scene and cooking food that shows a passion and care. Chef Conor Dempsey in Dublin's Amuse restaurant is a very skilled chef who is doing this.

The food in Amuse is using Asian flavours and ingredients, some dishes with a taste of Japanese, others with a touch of South-East Asia, but all with Dempsey's own interpretation. The cookery is ambitious, combining many, sometimes powerful, components on the plate. On most dishes, on the 8 course tasting menu, this is done with aplomb with the resulting dish delivering a complex, yet clean flavour. Hamachi with the fragrance and slight bitterness of bergamot, worked well with the slight heat from a horseradish yoghurt. Cod with a Kamebishi (3 year old fermented soy) sauce was another highlight - the richness of the sauce was cleverly contrasted with a sushi rice cream. The Kamebishi was more complex then a normal soy; deep umami, rich and slightly sweet, but it didn't overpower the fish. A serving of perfectly cooked Anjou pigeon with aubergine and kombucha (a fermented tea) was also another noteworthy dish. 

A very clever dessert of passion fruit 'Tom Kha Gai' was another beautiful offering; sweet, but not overly, well textured and light. Tom Kha Gai is a coconut soup, a savoury dish we have had many times in Thailand, a strange name for a dessert then, but the flavours are reminiscent of the original. The menu also starts with many quirky amuse bouches, a pre-dessert and some good petit-fours. All of these are extras and not included in the 8 courses.

A couple of courses were a let down however. Guinea fowl with courgette and coconut did not work. Another was the final course, a door-stoppingly dense dark chocolate ganache, too heavy to end an 8 course meal, served with unpleasant soapy violet.

The food in Amuse is respectful to cuisine of Asia that inspire it and the produce that it uses. Some dishes have that deep, but delicate umami synonymous with Japan, while others blend the sweet, salty and bitter balance that is the trademark of food from South East Asia. 

The 8 course tasting menu is €90, which may appear on the high side for Dublin, but when you consider the number of extras, the work involved in the menu and the quality of food, then it is actually very good value and feels generous. The service is friendly, informative with waiting staff taking an interest in the enjoyment of the diner. 

In an industry where many restaurants are following trend, copying others, or looking for something that will sell to the masses, Conor Dempsey is, maybe bravely, choosing gastronomy and high end dining and you get the sense here that he is passionate about both. Since our last visit nearly a year ago the food has progressed and the dining room feels more comfortable, so it very encouraging to see a restaurant investing in the right things and it will be interesting to see if Amuse can continue to improve. 

Amuse is a great addition to the Dublin food scene, serving fun, and clever food with some interesting Asian produce, delivered with skill and care by a talented chef. We certainly won't be leaving it a year to our next visit and, the fact we are eager to return, says a lot.

Click here for a more recent review of Amuse

We usually don't go to a restaurant for at least several months after it first opens. It takes a new restaurant time to find it's feet and iron out the creases. There are few businesses in any other industry that would be expected to run a perfectly smooth operation when they first open, so reviews of a restaurant on opening night or even in the first couple of weeks are hard to take seriously and criticism of food or service may be unfair. Visiting a restaurant which has had time to develop, polish its operation and hone the dishes gives a clearer picture of what the restaurant can offer. Even elBulli, which was only open for six months a year, was described by Ferran Adria as being a lot more organised and rhythmic near the end of their open period.

Saying that though, we broke our rule slightly when we visited Amuse on Dawson Street in Dublin after being open for only two months. It wasn't planned, but in desperation of a feed and without a dinner reservation we found ourselves in Amuse, which thankfully had a few openings. Had it been a bad experience or we had many criticisms we may not be writing this review and, instead, we would be going back in a few months, but since the experience was positive we figure a review isn't out of order.

Amuse may be described as "fusion", one of those overused culinary terms, as it incorporates both Asian and European ingredients and techniques. This is nothing new and although the term 'fusion' originated and was popularized in California around the 1970s, cultures have been fusing cuisines long before that. This is especially true when countries were colonized and two cuisines and cultures were thrown together. Due to French colonization of countries in South East Asia the French influence is still very obvious there. Cambodia's national dish of Fish Amok is steamed with egg to soufflé it, Vietnam's national dish of Pho is thought to have origins as Pot Au Feu and a consommé and baguettes are still eaten in both countries, albeit a bit sweeter. Of course, the spread and availability of spices could also be seen as one of the earliest forms of simple fusion cooking.

A lot of restaurants opening in Dublin at the moment are looking for a trend or a niche. The dining room, the setting and the theme are paramount and the food, which often isn't bad and can even be good, comes second. Amuse isn't like that though and, after a meal there, it is obvious that the food comes first and serving this style isn't a gimmick or an attempt to find a hole in the market. This is evident in the simple dining room with influential cook books, such as Michel Bras and Mugaritz, displayed on the walls. It comes across as if the chef, Conor Dempsey, is cooking the food he wants to cook and there is excitement in his food as he starts out on his venture.

We had the 7 course tasting menu and, first and foremost, a quick read of the menu showed it was actually 7 courses, i.e. it was 7 courses, not including the amuse bouche, pre dessert or coffee as many restaurants are selling their tasting menus as these days. So off to good start, before any food was tasted.

There was a lot to like in the food with many dishes showing a lightness of touch and balance of interesting flavour combinations. In the wrong hands ingredients such as yuzo, daikon, chocolate, coconut, kohlrabi (all of which appeared on savoury dishes) combined with fish, shellfish and fowl could be calamitous and it takes skill and an accomplished palate to get this balance right. On the whole the food tasted clean and was refreshing, while at the same time being moreish. The first two courses, which were the best of the night, demonstrated this well. Mackerel ceviche followed by a serving blue-fin tuna with radish and samphire. 

Other courses were also very good and highly enjoyable. An interesting serving of perfectly cooked squid served with coconut and cauliflower was interesting, but a bit overpowered by white chocolate and the dish may have worked better with scallops. A beautiful piece of hake served with a consommé that was slightly too salty. The dessert was a beautiful plate of summer fruit and shortbread that we would have gladly eaten a bucket-load of, but was served with a raspberry sorbet and chocolate pavé which were both a bit diluted and they turned the dessert into a sort of random assortment instead of dish. There was only one dish that we were not too keen on: egg yolk, mushrooms, fennel and hazelnut wasn't harmonious and a little bit cloying.  

The amuses bouches, pre-dessert and petit fours were top quality and the service was professional, friendly and knowledgeable.

Overall it was a very good start and we are really looking forward to going back in the hope that, with a bit of polishing, this restaurant could be one of the best in the city. Currently there is a slight inexperienced feel that may be because the restaurant is still new. Despite being a 7 course tasting menu a couple of dishes were still a little bit small, and we left feeling something was missing. Some of the dishes are just a little bit short of perfect and need the odd tweak.

It is great to see a restaurant in Dublin that is trying something different that isn't for the sake of being trendy. Amuse is offering something different purely on the food and this should be applauded. We left the restaurant impressed.