The Masons Arms, Swerford

This meant that I missed rather neatly (and rather unfortunately) the arrival of new owners who have been running the place to steadily mounting acclaim ever since.

A public relations company - those useful, if sometimes irritatingly pushy, adjuncts to the journalist's trade - alerted me to what has been achieved since Bill and Charmaine Leadbeater, and their business partner Tom Aldous, took over in 2003.

Chef Bill's concentration on dishes from locally sourced food, all prepared 'in-house', has delighted customers and attracted praise from some of the leading guide books.

This was not entirely news to me, since I have a copy of Michelin's 2006 Eating Out in Pubs in which the Masons Arms is described as "a roadside Cotswold inn raised above the norm by the keenness of a husband and wife team whose hospitable approach seems to have spread to the rest of the helpful young staff". The guide adds: "For the most part only local produce makes it into the kitchen, and many methods and recipes described on the blackboard owe as much to the Victorian cookbook as to contemporary cuisine."

Since Bill has previously worked with, among others, such luminaries as Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White (and lived to tell the tale!), this culinary eclecticism is perhaps not surprising. Other influences on his work have included the cookery books of Elizabeth David and Mrs Beeton.

Rosemarie and I chose last Friday night for our visit, which was, of course, made anonymously. Unsure of the easiest way to reach Swerford, I consulted an online map supplier. This plotted a bizarre route, which plunged us off into the country before Woodstock and again before Enstone. My 'sat nav' - well, Rosemarie was seated and navigating - was not very happy at being obliged to identify so many minor roads as we sped towards them. What a pity I hadn't remembered that it's much quicker to continue on the A44 all the way to the A361 turning to Banbury. The pub is four miles along that road.

The handsome 19th-century building is said to have once been a Freemasons' Lodge. This seems to me an oddly rural location for such a thing, though its splendid views - not observable when we arrived in the dark - cannot but inspire admiration for the Great Architect of the Universe.

Inside, the place has been handsomely restored. Having been warmly welcomed by the chap behind the bar, Rosemarie and I were shown to a table in a pretty candlelit section of the restaurant. Candle-heated, too, since the dozen flickering nightlights on a chimneypiece a foot from my back were transmitting a powerful warmth.

I managed to keep my jacket on, even with the extra internal heat supplied by my starter of minestrone.

Having, three weeks ago, endured the horror of a packet version of this Italian favourite at a Berkshire pub (which insolently charged a fiver for the filth), I was anxious to be reminded how it should really taste. Of lovely fresh seasonal vegetables, is the answer - as this one did. They were mainly root vegetables - carrot, turnips (I think) and potatoes, in a rich tomato-based liquid, with beans, a few short lengths of pasta and Parmesan-style cheese on top. Excellent rustic bread was supplied with unsalted butter.

Rosemarie, meanwhile, was tapping into the pub's more solidly traditional vein with soft herring roes on toast. This was the first time in years she had seen this teatime favourite of the past on a restaurant menu, and she couldn't resist them, especially as presented here with the added flavour of capers and fresh parsley.

She continued with what was, for her, a much less familiar product of the sea, barracuda, whose forceful flavour is something of an acquired taste. Rosemarie has yet to acquire it, and she was not much taken with the combination of grey, meaty flesh and the strong fishy taste. Fortunately, her dish also featured what were, for her, more appealing elements - a saffron-flavoured stew of small mussels and large peeled prawns in a sweet citrussy sauce, along with strips of slippery, smooth-textured linguine.

I, too, chose fish of a somewhat dubious reputation. Rick Stein says in his Taste of the Sea: "I used to think pollack was just plain dull, it being about the least flavoured of all the cod family. But all fish has its uses and pollack, being very cheap, and coming in large bone-free fillets, is excellent for fish pies."

Jane Grigson, in Fish Cookery, finds it good for soups. She calls it "a Monday fish, hardly worth elevating to Friday". Happily, Bill made a powerful case for eating it on this particular Friday, and in something other than a soup or pie, with his shallow-fried fillet teamed - yes, it needs a powerful accompaniment - with a rich tomato and basil sauce. The fish was perfectly cooked, to the point where the flesh had a mother-of-pearl-like opalescence and was firm but by no means dry. Caramelised baby fennel and mashed potato completed a flavoursome and attractively presented dish.

Two spoons were ordered with our pudding of strawberry pavlova, though it still remained uncompleted. It seemed to us both that there were too few strawberries (perhaps only two, I thought, mentally assembling the fragments) and too little strawberry coulis to go with the amount of meringue and chantilly cream supplied.

The bill, a shade over £50, was a pleasant surprise for food and drink - the wine was a crisp 2005 Muscadet de Sèvre et Maine 'Sur Lie' Domaine de la Sensive - of this quality. Though service was always polite, it would be better described as efficient rather than warm.