The Marker: Glossy new Hotel could change the game with a bit more work

The words “local” and “seasonal” are beginning to prompt the words “yeah” and “right” in my head. You’ll search long and hard to find a menu without them, almost as long and hard as you’ll search to find Irish fields full of all this local seasonal produce. They’re putting my inner sceptic in the ascendancy over my inner Pollyanna – frankly I just don’t buy it.

And yes, “seasonal” is a difficult concept. As the growing season fell weeks behind this year, the hungry gap grew into a hungry canyon. Anyone genuinely offering seasonal vegetables this unsprung spring has broccoli, kale, carrots and leeks in their repertoire. I know this as someone who has daily implored pea and bean plants to buck up and grow.

The new Marker Hotel in Dublin's Docklands has "a sharp focus on Irish locally sourced produce", according to its website. "Yay," you might think, until you think a bit more about the wriggle room in a phrase like that.

The focus doesn’t seem at its sharpest when green beans, peas and “wild artichoke” appear on the plates as a bone-chilling wind batters the feature grasses outside.

But to the good stuff. This spanking new hotel looks like a black-and-white hall floor on the outside and a grotto of origami-ed concrete inside. The first thing you see in the vast lobby is a long bench table where bar customers are eating lunch. Everything and everyone is glossy. The brasserie is off to the left, acres of tables and glass front and back.

I get a seat in a window nook with a great view of the waterfront and settle into a warm moulded plastic chair, wondering whether it's a new-fangled heated chair, but it's the solar warmth from the sun, on this pleasant side of the plate glass. Jeanne has already arrived but is happy to join me in the warmth of my window nook because as she puts it: "it's all a bit Blake's 7 over there."

She’s on a “no bread, chips or anything nice,” regime so the menu with interesting light lunch options sounds good. She’s delighted to see John Rogers’ camelina oil on the menu. It’s not every day a former attorney general provides what’s drizzled on your salad.

It’s a classy ingredient for a hotel menu; sadly it’s not on a particularly classy dish. They call this raw salad, but when you put carrots, celeriac and fennel chopped matchstick thin with a creamy dressing (presumably the goat’s cheese element), what you’ve got is coleslaw. Posh expensive coleslaw, but still coleslaw.

My starter is better, soft slices of trout tartare with teeny tiny pieces of tomato, beautifully toasted pine nuts and a lime salsa with micro-coriander, which is the new rocket in Dublin restaurants these days.

Main courses are good. I get the pan-fried calf’s liver, which arrives in a scalding hot bowl, the heat of which has wilted the garnish of pea shoots and it’s as nice as liver can be. Two slices are fried crisply on the outside and bedded into the grey-green skordalia, which tastes (not unpleasantly) like a jar of pickled artichoke hearts blitzed in a blender.

There’s an oxtail croquette too, but it comes with the aforementioned steamed greens: green beans, peas and some (seasonal) sprouting broccoli, a tiny portion for €4.

Jeanne’s sea bream is excellent, crisply fried fish over a creamy mussel chowder with an excellent onion bhaji to provide some crunch.

Desserts look beautiful and my rhubarb parfait with ginger ice cream is a lovely nostalgic set of flavours given a great makeover. There’s a fragment of set sugar piece with dried mint leaves in it which is a nice take on the fresh mint leaf garnish. Jeanne’s is less impressive, a chocolate mousse that’s not chocolatey enough.

The Marker is nice and the service is excellent. It’s a game-changer to see a large hotel taking Irish food seriously and it has worked hard to put good ingredients front and centre. That’s why it’s so frustrating that it hasn’t gone the whole hog. It would take just one more stretch (please, a kale salad – they’re good) to make it simply and brilliantly local. Lunch for two with soft drinks and a double espresso came to €68.75. THE VERDICT: A nearly-there encouraging take on large-scale hotel food The Marker, Grand Canal Square, Docklands, Dublin 2, tel: 01-687 5100 Facilities: Painted entirely black Music: Background pop Food provenance: Excellent. Cashel Blue, David Llewellyn’s apple syrup and that Newgrange camelina oil all name-checked Wheelchair access: Yes