Landlord and chef Paul Griffith has good reason to feel proud following the recent award of coveted Bib Gourmand status in the 2011 Michelin Guide for The Carpenter’s Arms, in Fulbrook, near Burford.

The accolade is the culmination of five years hard work for Paul and his team, which has brought him a lot of happy customers.

Oxfordshire, as it happens, does rather well with Bib Gourmands, which are said to denote “good food at moderate prices”. Out of 61 in England (excluding London), the county now has five. All are favourite places of mine. Besides, The Carpenter’s, they are The Mason’s Arms at Swerford, The Kingham Plough, The Mole Inn at Toot Baldon and The Magdalen Arms in Iffley Road, Oxford (another newcomer).

Michelin’s inspectors say of The Carpenter’s: “Its unassuming outer appearance gives little clue as to the warm, inviting style within. Expect robust and competitively priced dishes, from grilled chops to cod with chickpea stew. (I have made two corrections to this extract, incidentally. The tyre firm needs to employ a better proofreader.) Paul knows how to cater for discerning appetites, having previously been personal chef to a man with a reputation for good-living, Lord Lloyd-Webber. He has also cooked for the Saudi royal family.

When I first visited and reviewed at The Carpenter’s five years ago, he was working with his wife, Mandy. She has since gone to live abroad and been replaced by Paul’s childhood sweetheart, Sarah, whom he dated in their native Yorkshire when he was 15. Having not seen her in decades, he tracked her down using Facebook. Romance was swiftly rekindled, and she came to join him at the pub where she has become a happy face behind the bar and in the restaurant.

This — as you can see from the photograph above — occupies the whole seating area of the pub, except for a few stools at the bar. Through the door-shaped opening at the rear is a small separate section, which is where we sat on our Saturday night visit the week before last.

Rosemarie, her mother and I enjoyed the welcoming, traditional feel to the place, as noted by Michelin. Dinner, when it appeared proved very much to our liking too.

My starter was a generous plate of smoked salmon, with lemon and small pickled capers. With fresh bread and good butter, this made a simple but delicious beginning to my meal.

I drank a little white wine, a crisp Rhône viognier, but switched to a small glass of merlot for my main course. This was a large piece of undyed smoked haddock, grilled though not dry, with exceptionally creamy mash, curly kale and a soft-poached egg, with potted shrimps melting over the whole.

This last brought me a taste of what Rosemarie had enjoyed as her first course, especially for their spiciness, with hints of nutmeg and cayenne. She continued with a delicious slab (the mot juste, I think) of slow-cooked belly pork, which came with mash, mustard sauce and a crisp apple fritter.

Olive began with a smooth, buttery chicken liver parfait, and continued with a first-class fish pie, containing smoked haddock, salmon, monkfish and cod, in a sauce enlivened with chopped celery.

She finished with a steamed marmalade pudding with custard. She liked it, but said it could have done with more marmalade. When we chatted afterwards with Paul and Sarah, he took the criticism on board and promised to use a greater quantity of his home-made preserve in future