Dublin is full of mediocre restaurants that for some reason can get away with very high prices. Pichet is probably the best example of this.
Four of us had dinner there recently and the food was at best acceptable, but actually would have been considered OK value at half the price. The chicken breast obviously had been warming for a while and the sides had a nasty processed feel to them.
Service was smug and rushed and when the bill came to €170 for two courses (for 4 ) I was taken aback. (for fairness, I have excluded the drinks element of the bill, but just so you know they know how to load that as well).
I’m not sure why this place and others like it get good reviews, but a clue could be that the weaker reviews here tend to be from people outside Ireland. Are we too easily pleased and too eager to admire the emperor’s new clothes?