The diversity of Dublin’s dining scene now takes in as many ethnic restaurants as any city in Europe—plenty of Italian, Middle Eastern, Asian ramen, Indian and so on. But it’s at its best when the food reflects the bounty of Ireland’s provender and seas. Here are four current standouts.
         The city’s hotels have put a good deal of money and thought into their restaurants, based on the tradition that dining in a hotel in many European cities may constitute the very best they have to offer—a fact even the snooty Michelin Guides have been forced to admit. For me, there is nothing nicer than to end a long day of visiting a city’s attractions by resting up then going down to dinner in a fine room like WILDE (Harry Street) on the second floor of the elegantly appointed Westbury Hotel.
      Bound within French windows, with wide tile floors, hanging greenery and big globe lamps, WILDE sets a balance of modernity and freshness with casual art deco chic. The bentwood chairs have pretty blankets slung over them, the white marble tables are handsomely set, and the silver and glassware are of excellent quality. The less loud section, and the prettier one, is in the long hallway overlooking Harry Street.
     The menu, which quaintly announces that “All our meat and poultry is 100% Irish and traceable from farm to fork,” begins with a selection of oysters (six for €21, with a glass of Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve €39), and beef carpaccio with rocket, parmesan and olive oil (€20). The wild prawn cocktail with Bere Island crab (€26) is sweet and briny, while the squash soup (€10) is a restorative.
     The excellent scallops (€22) are from Kilkeel, served with crispy puri bread, shiso leaves and a dotting of sesame, while organic salmon (€32) takes on Asian notes from a miso glaze and is sided with edamame, sesame aubergine and soy dashi. Risotto with wild mushrooms was, one evening, lackluster and too soupy (€26).  It was good to find a curry on the menu, Masala style (€28) with fragrant basmati rice, papadums and mango chutney.
         Desserts (€9.50) are all sumptuous, from a warm Bramley apple and rhubarb pie, with the lagniappe of vanilla custard and rich clotted cream, to a Bolivian wild chocolate fondant, golden honeycomb and blood orange.
      The wine list teems with options from all over Europe and the Americas, with sections entitled “Island Wines,” “Gastronomic Wines,” “Young and Talented Winemakers” and “The Wild Geese” and a more than ample selection of wines by the glass.

         The chef at Glovers Alley by Andy McFadden (128 St. Stephen’s Green) puts his own name on the line, and he has every reason to. This is one of Dublin’s finest and most serious dining experiences, set on the second floor of the Fitzwilliam Hotel, with the awards to prove it. There is an à la carte menu, but the better option is to accept the €90 three-course menu, with four courses at €105 and a seven-course dinner of “Glovers Alley Classics” at €150. There are also supplements, as well as vegetarian and vegan menus. 
       The art deco room is very sleek and rather brown, not unlike an ocean liner of the 1930s, with nicely separated tables and perfect lighting and decibel level. Service is as affable as you’d expect in Ireland.
       I could eat the wonderful freshly baked bread by the basket every morning, noon and night, served with fine Irish butter. An amuse of tender macarons and creamy foie gras put me on notice for the kind of creative cuisine to come, which included another amuse of small onion tarts (left) to eat in two bites. A classic marriage of springtime asparagus with rich hollandaise came next, and for my main course the suckling pig was nonpareil in its texture, juiciness, fattiness, jus and color. Lamb was every bit as good, in a sauce verte and truffle cream.
      Other dishes I did not try but have the ring of tasteful imagination include a beetroot tartare; Dublin Bay Prawns with a tomato hollandaise and melting lardo; and a "ratatouille” of wild turbot, cabbage vegetables, hot chorizo and briny seaweed.
       Desserts are all at the same level, from a lovely ïle flôttante to various chocolate or citrus soufflés. The wine list is one of the best in the city.

      Peploe’s (16 St. Stephen’s Green) has the look and feel of a timeless restaurant, though with a 1990s ambience, serving French and continental cuisine via owner Harry Canny. There are three rooms, all of them quite cozy and comfortable, with maroon banquettes, small table lamps, flowers and linens. A smart bar draws a crowd for their well-made signature cocktails, and the dining room to the left features a mural of what appears to be the restaurant’s own clientele. Further on is a smaller room that sits a single table, which is the coziest of all, surrounded by books and bottles and the least loud. Lighting flatters everyone, and women do like to dress well, sitting against beautiful murals or a wall of books.
      Peploe’s draw a posh crowd and celebrities in town tend to drop in, so the staff runs as smooth as it needs to be when demands can be idiosyncratic. The wine list is excellent, with a good house Bordeaux. The food, while competently prepared, does not pretend to novelty, geared instead to a something-for-everyone menu like a hearty onion soup gratinée (right) with sourdough crouton and piping hot Gruyère (€9.50) and a cream of cauliflower soup (€8.50). Pudgy prawns are treated to a tempura batter and delicately fried (€18.95).
      The chicken Milanese with a garlic-herb butter and capers comes crisp under a layer of Parmesan cheese (€27.50), and with it you get a generous bowl of duck fat-roasted potatoes to feed the table. The seared halibut comes with a cauliflower puree, braised leeks in Sherry and a roasted scallop with hazelnuts (€36.50), while there is a delectable breast of roast duck with a North African pastilla of leg confit, red cabbage and bitter orange (€34.50).
      You may well want to order the selection of Irish cheeses afterwards (€13.50), unless you opt for a blackberry soufflé with pistachio ice cream (13.50) or a vanilla crème brûleé with peanut butter sable.
      Peploe’s is the kind of place that puts you in mind to have an after dinner drink from an estimable list that, logically, is rich in Irish whiskies.

Ryleigh’s Rooftop Steakhouse (82 North Wall Quay) is in the new red brick boutique Mayson Hotel on the north shore of the Liffey and has all the hallmarks of a just un-packed gastro-pub, from its splendid bar section and its comfortable booths overlooking the water and the business buildings across the way. Downstairs is a more traditional pub with island bar called Elephant & Castle. Neither room needs the intrusive music played à l’Americaine.
     The focus is on grilling on a grill that can be raised and lowered for precise searing and temperature, and it makes a difference with a terrific, braised flatiron steak in a very deep, thickly reduced sauce (€34). There’s also a spatchcock chicken with hefty bean stew, buttered mashed potatoes and romesco sauce (€30). Some of the best scallops I had in town were here, which come with the added pleasure of pork belly and a pea purée (€13.50).
      For dessert I could hardly be expected to resist a caramel sundae (€8.50).
      The restaurant is open for breakfast through dinner.
      The wine list at Ryleigh’s is okay, though its red house wine “brought in by cask” is dreadful stuff. Better to consider one of the 13 beers offered. There are also a few sweet dessert cocktails, if you’re so inclined.

         Prof. Alexandra Janson agreed to see Katie on Monday at her apartment on Riverside Drive, near the Columbia campus. As Katie expected, the apartment was completely covered wall to wall with books, as was Prof. Mundt’s on the occasion she visited him. In the living room the coffee table had more books piled on it, and there were stacks on either side of the sofa Katie was invited to sit on. There was no offer of tea or coffee.
         “So,” the professor began without a moment of small talk. “The so-called ‘new’ Vermeer,” she said, lifting her chin up. “I’m finding it hard to keep an open mind.”
         Janson was in her late sixties, slender and tall, with skin remarkably free of wrinkles; her gray hair was pulled back, exposing pearl earrings.  She wore a long cotton skirt in a flowered pattern and a crisp white blouse, with more pearls. Katie assumed she’d come from a wealthy, high class Dutch family.
         “Why do you say that, Professor?”
        “Mainly because it just popped up out of thin air.” She snapped her fingers. “Where has it been all these centuries? People do find masterpieces in their attic, but in a Chinese attic? There is simply no historic rationale for a Vermeer that has never been in the CR to have a Chinese provenance.”
         Katie knew that “CR” was the abbreviation of “Catalogue Raisonné,” an authoritative list of all the known works of an artist, often compiled over decades by various experts in the field. If a work of art was not in the CR, it was considered suspicious until proven to be authentic, which could take years, as was the case with the Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, the work that had been in dispute since 1904.   
         “You must understand, Ms. Cavuto, that it’s been estimated that between five and ten million paintings were created in the Netherlands during the 17th century. The upper- and middle-class patrons were ravenous for things to hang on their walls. And, if it were any other painter than Vermeer, there are many, many prospects that would show up over the centuries, some real, some fake, most of them dreadful. But there are only 34 Vermeers and not a single rumor of any more, except of course that dreadful Young Woman Seated at a Virginal.”  She shook her head in mild disgust.
         “So, if you were asked to examine the painting, what would you look for?”
         “First of all, I have seen all the extant Vermeers in the world. I talk about that in my book, which took me more than a decade to write. I even have my doubts about one or two of the paintings in Vermeer’s CR. I know his brushwork, the way he mixed his colors, the props he used again and again in his work. Signatures are always helpful in Vermeer’s case, because he didn’t always sign his pieces or signed them differently every time.”
         Katie remembered the different signature names used in The Geographer and The Astronomer.
         “I also look at the way he used the camera obscura (below) to achieve such fidelity to nature, which he, like all great artists, altered radically.”
         Janson was referring to an optical phenomenon by which an image is projected through a small hole in a darkened room to produce an upside-down image on the wall, from which the artist could then trace a copy.  Though the principle had been  known for more than a thousand years, the term camera obscura  (“darkened room” in Latin) was only first used in Vermeer’s day, as of 1604. Vermeer was among many artists of the Renaissance who used the device.
         Janson went on.  “I’d also look for little pin holes that appear in some of Vermeer’s work, which helped him to create a vanishing point and to maintain perspective and depth. Sometimes they’ve only appeared after a painting has been carefully cleaned of old varnish that closed the holes up.
         “Of course, I have no idea if this new painting has been restored or cleaned at all, which makes it much more difficult to be definitive. One has to, so to speak, get under the painting’s skin to see what is not visible.”
         “But isn’t that what X-rays would show?”
         “X-rays will show the layers of paint and varnish on a canvas, some of which might have been added later. Indeed, in the 19th century a seller or gallery might deliberately brush on a brownish varnish, even use a darker paint, just to make the work look antique. They called it ‘Rembrandt lighting.’ It was considered perfectly legitimate to do so. Later on, restorers removed it and showed the real colors (below).
         “Which is one reason so much of what is written by scholars about masterworks is nonsense, because they have not seen the original colors and brushwork in hundreds of years. Not to mention the effects of soot, candle wax and smoke, acid rain, even insects. Unless you have a painting in as pristine a condition as you can make it, it is almost useless to try to authenticate a work. Especially by masters, because theirs are the ones that are forged. No one fakes a third-rate Dutch painter. It would be worth next to nothing.”
         “Have you asked the Chinese government to be one of the experts to see the painting?” asked Katie.
         Janson sniffed. “No, and they’d never invite me. I’m considered too much of an iconoclast when it comes to authenticating work. I do know the experts from the Kunstmuseum and the Historiches who are going.  They are very, very good. I’d trust their opinion.”
         Clearly, the professor had said about all she chose to say to Katie, though it was equally clear she wanted to be on the record in the story, even deliberately spelling her last name out—“son, not sen.”  Katie thanked her and gathered her notes and recorder.  A few minutes later, walking to her car, she called Elizabeth Horner at Fordham, just to get her take on what Janson had said.