The Veritas wine bar and bistro in North Bar, Banbury, has recently undergone a stylish makeover in order to play a starring role in Raymond Blanc's new TV series The Restaurant. It is one of nine establishments around the country to figure in the programme, in which enterprising couples fulfil a dream of opening and running their own eatery. Every decision, every mistake, every blazing row has been caught on camera and will be broadcast when the series begins on BBC2 soon.

Veritas's owners Dorothée and Pete Cape have been sworn to secrecy about exactly what happened on their premises in the 12 weeks the cameras were rolling. Certainly, a number of their regulars took part as punters. The Capes will be setting up plasma screens in the bar for each of the programmes, and will be giving a glass of bubbly to anyone who spots themselves.

One mystery everyone is waiting to see cleared up is exactly what sort of establishment the contestants will be running. It could even be a chip shop, Dorothée was saying before the filming began. It seems to me though - having had my first experience of Veritas now that it's back to its usual business - that the competing couple would have done very well to run a restaurant just like this. It is, in many ways, absolutely delightful.

Cleverly laid out, the place has a large airy bar at the front - where we sat for our dinner - and three individually styled dining areas behind. There is even a scented garden courtyard for use on balmy evenings.

Since the place is open every day (and indeed throughout the day), we were able to visit on a Monday when we judged - correctly - that it would be reasonably quiet. Having already looked at the menu on the restaurant's website (www.veritaswinebars.com), we had a pretty shrewd idea of what we might fancy.

In fact, the menu turned out to be more extensive than was advertised. There were even a couple of specials - one of which Rosemarie selected as her main course. Since this brought the one culinary black mark in an otherwise stain-free evening, I shall get it out of the way straightaway.

It was described as mille-feuille of seafood. Now I know that many dictionaries admit fish into the category of seafood, but this is not what the word traditionally means in the culinary sense. Larousse, for example, defines seafood as "a collective term for shellfish and other small edible marine animals, such as spider crabs, mussels, shrimps, winkles, clams, sea urchins, oysters and langoustines". It was some of these that Rosemarie expected to see when the dish was placed before her. In fact, the filling consisted exclusively of chunks of salmon and a white fish, possibly haddock.

Nor was the mille-feuille a mille-feuille, defined in Larousse as "consisting of thin layers of puff pastry". This 'mille-feuille' was actually a piece of latticed rösti potato. And what about the "confit tomatoes"? They were four cherry tomatoes that looked as if they had been dropped into hot water. All very odd, we thought, and very expensive at £15.25.

Fortunately she was very much happier with her excellent starter of a large round ravioli (raviolus?) filled with shredded ham hock and chopped spring onions and served with spinach and a honey and cardamom dressing. Her pudding, cherry chocolate fondant, went down well, too, despite a sicky-making addition of what tasted like syrup.

For me it was satisfaction all through dinner. I began with a salad of nicely moist smoked chicken and slightly crunchy fine beans, and continued with seared bass with crab and basil risotto. I might have hoped for more obvious signs of searing in an appetising crisping of the fish skin, but this was otherwise a fine dish.

Though I enjoyed my pudding of "summer berries", these were not the straightforward fruit that I expected but a jelly containing raspberries and strawberries. The flavours were nicely complemented by a passion fruit sorbet.