Stress-free Irish beef could win challenge of serious French chefs

The lights dim in the dark oak and red brocade dining room of the Irish Ambassador's residence. Irish folk music plays over a loudspeaker while aerial views of green fields appear on a large video screen. French chefs from some of the world's most fashionable restaurants - Maxim's, Drouant, L'Arpege, Lasserre - watch as cuddly lambs run through fields and exotic cattle munch on the greensward. There are calves suckling from cows with big eyes and long lashes. If I were one of the chefs standing there in a white jacket, the video would make me want to adopt the animals as pets rather than eat them.

Bord Bia's executives learned long ago that the French are not susceptible to financial arguments - tell a Frenchman that something is cheap and he won't want to buy it. Mr Michael Duffy, the board's director, knows the way to the Gallic heart. "French and Irish, we share the same passion for good food," he tells more than two dozen chefs invited to the embassy by Ms Tara McCarthy, Bord Bia's representative in France and Belgium. Irish farmers "rarely raise more than 20 beasts and they know each one of them individually", Mr Duffy continues. "They lead a peaceful life without stress, spending most of the year outside, grazing on grass." Then what? Within 10 days, he promises, Bord Bia will deliver Irish rib steak to each of their restaurants, for them to cook as they wish.

Irish beef exports to France haven't fully recovered from the "mad-cow" epidemic, which made French consumers wary of non-French products. If Bord Bia can win over the very fussy top French chefs, the philosophy goes, food writers will expound on the delights of Irish beef and word will filter down to the retail level. Mr Duffy says Irish meat should enjoy a prestige reputation comparable to Argentina's.

Mr Guy Legay sits next to the Irish Ambassador, Mr Patrick O'Connor, in the white and gold salon where dinner is served. France takes its chefs seriously: for his 19 years in the Ritz kitchen and the dozens of young chefs he trained, Mr Legay wears the red rosette of the Legion of Honour. His calling card bears the insignia of five different medals, and the words "Meilleur Ouvrier de France". "The chefs with the blue, white and red collars have earned the title of meilleur ouvrier," Mr Legay explains. "Only they have the right to wear it. It's a cooking competition once every four years. Even among the three-star Michelin restaurants, only a few chefs have it."

Our conversation is interrupted by the pounding of a bodhran as an army of liveried waiters simultaneously set plates of roast beef with baby cabbages and a side dish of beef stewed in Guinness before us. It has come, the menu notes, "straight from the green pastures of Ireland".

"It smells good," Mr Legay says, inhaling deeply. He examines the meat as if studying an art work. "The meat is quite pink. You want to bite into it." He closes his eyes as he moves the first forkful of Irish beef around his mouth. "Tasty, very tasty. The flavour of good beef raised naturally. You can cut it with the back of your knife - that's very important to me."

Mr Legay and his old friend Mr Henri Seguin, the chef at Au Pressoir, chat across the table. They deplore the new fashion of working breakfasts, which deprives fine restaurants of so much revenue at lunchtime. A few dozen French chefs meet every month for early morning casse-croutes hosted by an eccentric Frenchwoman. "We don't always talk about cooking," Mr Legay says. "We talk about politics, sports, women . . ." Their favourite foods, they agree, are the traditional dishes they prepare in the autumn: heart of fillet with truffles, hare stuffed with foie gras . . .

Mr John Howard, the owner of Le Coq Hardi in Ballsbridge, flew to Paris to prepare dinner for his French colleagues. His restaurant became famous as the trysting place of Mr Charlie Haughey and Ms Terry Keane, but Mr Howard says the publicity came too late; he is selling Le Coq Hardi and retiring.

Mr Howard refuses to be intimidated by cooking for some of the world's best chefs, many of whom he knows through his leadership of the Irish chapter of Euro-Toques, an association of 3,000 European chefs. "They would be my idols," Mr Howard says of the French cooks. "Perhaps they lost their way a bit . . ." Fortunately, he adds, the minimalist nouvelle cuisine is gone, "even if it brought a certain amount of things - especially presentation".

He doesn't have much time for present trends in cuisine: "Mediterranean - lots of garlic, olive oil and tomato - I'm not sure it works for Ireland; the Asian influence is happening now, and `diffusion cooking' - a mixture of everything." He calls his own style "classic French, but lighter". With Irish ingredients only, of course.