Sole Seafood and Grill, on the plush streets of Dublin’s south side, was recently reviewed by longstanding restaurant critic with the Irish Times Corinna Hardgrave.

The Dealer’s eyes perked up when he saw the article, not just because he likes to know where to get a good feed, but also because he recognised that the restaurant is part of the EHL hospitality group, part-owned by embattled Bord Bia chair Larry Murrin.

Along with his other roles, Murrin is the chair and co-founder of the EHL group, which includes two other big restaurants – Fire Steakhouse and The Round Room, both next to the Mansion House on Dawson Street.

The Irish Times review took a particular aim at the origin of the food on offer, which is interesting given Murrin’s run-in with the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) over his other company, Dawn Farms, importing Brazilian beef into Ireland.

This revelation saw the IFA picket the Bord Bia offices for five weeks last spring and led to a national debate on food imports, Murrin and Bord Bia hauled before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food, along with farmer protests at Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon’s constituency office in Co Kildare for his failure to sack Murrin as Bord Bia chair.

Imported

The review tells us that the sea bass on the menu is farmed and imported from either Spain, Greece or Turkey.

It says that the Cajun chicken is from Poland and is “not free range and that the chicken supreme (€35 on the a la carte) is made with Dutch chicken that is not free-range either”.

It went on to say that the “Guinness smoked salmon is farmed in Scotland and the tiger prawns in the chowder are farmed and block frozen in Bangladesh”.

The Irish Times review went on to say that “considering Sole claims that its 'food philosophy is one honouring seafood sustainability and local Irish producers', this is not a good start”.

In the end, Sole got a review of just three stars out of five from the Irish Times review, which I’m sure Murrin and co will be disappointed with.

At least the beef on offer was Irish, with the review stating it was from Peter Hannan, a meat business based in Moira, Co Down.