'It's half-past five. We'll get to Godstow in time for dinner, drink at the Trout, leave Hardcastle's motor car and walk back by the river. Wouldn't that be best?"

Lord Sebastian Flyte's suggestion to his pal Charles Ryder, as the two motor back from a visit to Flyte's magnificent ancestral home, is one of fiction's most famous 'name checks' for what is arguably Oxford's best-known pub.

It seems to me, though, that you need the intelligence of Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse - another fictional visitor to the Trout - to work out precisely what the teddy-toting aristocrat is proposing in Brideshead Revisited.

The puzzle centres on the location for dinner. Where, except for the Trout, could this have been eaten? Yet Evelyn Waugh seems to be identifying the place - a favourite pub of his, incidentally - as the venue for drinks only. If there is to be meal as well, then this is going to be far below the Lucullan standards usually enjoyed by these archetypes of Oxford's gilded youth. The Trout was a fairly primitive place in the early 1920s. It was to be another 40 years before you could even buy a glass of wine there - a provision so unusual, when it came, that it made headlines in The Daily Telegraph.

These days, wine is so much the expected thing that four of the most popular varieties are sold in 'draught' form from pumps on the bar. We tried the New Zealand sauvignon blanc - very toothsome - as we sampled some of the excellent food that seems set to become, from now on, one of the Trout's biggest 'draws'. At last, following a major revamp, the third in ten years, the pub is serving dishes that will delight, rather than disappoint, the visitors who flock there to savour its idyllic situation and atmosphere.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago the elegant simplicity of a lunch (butternut, white bean and chilli soup; trout paté) I enjoyed there a few days after its reopening. Earlier this week, Rosemarie, Olive and I tried it for dinner, with equally satisfactory results. Though it was Monday, I took the precaution of booking. The young lady I dealt with on the phone struck me as endearingly honest; others might have found her irritating. When, some way into our conversation, she asked "How many is it for?", I replied: "Three; that's the third time I have told you." She said: "Sorry sir. But it is very busy and I wanted to be sure. I made a mess-up just now."

Having arrived at 8.15, we found the place was humming, but there was still a choice of tables in the various dining sections. We chose one in a quiet corner of the riverside extension (which was added in 1966 using stone from the demolished Cowley Barracks). Enlarged covers of Colin Dexter's various Morse novels decorate its walls.

Orders are now taken at the table (hurrah!) rather than by the ghastly queuing method of old. Ours having been given, the food arrived with welcome speed (we were all hungry). My starter was a rerun of the smoked trout paté which I'd liked so much at lunch. I again thoroughly enjoyed it, though I would have preferred it if the menu's "granary bread" had not turned out to be toast - cold, damp toast at that. There were no complaints, though, from my companions. Rosemarie had a crispy shortcrust pastry tart filled with Stilton and caramelised onions and served with watercress, while her mum had a bowl of roasted mushrooms in a creamy sauce featuring pinot grigio and garlic, with bruschetta.

My main course choice was one of the day's specials, roast saddle of rabbit. Unfortunately, supplies of the dish were said to have been exhausted for some time. I wished I had been told that before my expectations were roused - especially since Rosemarie had asked if everything was 'on' when the menus were brought, and been assured that everything was.

Anyway, sea bass proved an admirable substitute - two crisp fried fillets, on a base of sauteed new potatoes and spinach, with roasted cherry tomatoes and hollandaise sauce flavoured with a scented basil. To my left, Olive was happily occupied over a huge portion of crispy battered haddock, with a bowl of "frites" (chips - too thin for perfect enjoyment) and "pea purée" (aka mushy peas). Rosemarie had crispy-topped fish pie, which was absolutely stuffed with smoked haddock and salmon, as well as a few prawns. With green beans and fiery shallots, this seemed good value at £9.

A date-filled sticky toffee pudding with ice cream kept Olive smiling. Rosemarie passed on pud, having worked up enthusiasm for a chocolate fondant, only too find it was 'off' (another one!). Nothing but chocolate would do, it seemed. This was bad luck on me, who had been promised a spoonful of whatever was ordered. But at least I had coffee . . .