My favourite sort of pub is one that remains a focus of community life while offering standards of food, drinks and service that were found extremely rarely in English ‘locals’ as they used to be. A pub like The Bell in Standlake, in fact.

I have been an occasional customer there over three decades, most frequently about 20 years ago when it was in the charge of Roy and Suzanne Flynn. They later opted to change a vowel in the name of their hostelry by moving to The Bull in Charlbury. This reflected Roy’s growing disenchantment with Morland, the owners of the 250-year-old building. A one-time manager of rock band Yes, Roy later joked that being a tenant of the brewery was the biggest business mistake he’d made since turning down the chance to look after Genesis as well.

Though the company’s artist-with-palette motif is still in place on a wall, The Bell is, of course, no longer the property of the now-defunct Morland or, indeed, of its successor Greene King. A free house these days, it is run by Few Inns, a three-boss business that might as appropriately be styled Two Inns, its only other one being The Boot at Barnard Gate. Not least of the advantages arising from loss of the brewery tie is the freedom to buy a wide range of beers. Just how wide can be judged from the extensive display of pump clips at the back of the bar.

The house beer for the spring and summer is the highly fashionable Doom Bar bitter, from Sharp’s Brewery in Rock, the favourite Cornish haunt of junior Hooray Henrys. Also available on the night we visited was Shropshire Gold, a deliciously refreshing beer from the Salopian Brewery in Shrewsbury. At my insistence (I wanted a few sips), Rosemarie ordered a half. Nectar!

We were shown on our arrival last Tuesday into the cosy, rustically furnished room at the front of the building, but the fact that it was empty led us to opt instead for the main bar. While this meant we had to put up with over-loud pop music, the compensation was a bit of company. Indeed, as the evening wore on, it became a pleasantly animated scene.

The evening menu from which we made our food selections was interesting if not especially extensive. Veal and sage raviolino and a pesto, black olive and feta risotto made with ‘the queen of rices’, carnaroli, both showed an Italian influence in the starters; main courses were more English in style and included local lamb cutlets, steaks, burgers and sole with caper butter.

I began with an excellent full-flavoured bowl of roast fennel soup which had been thickened, I would guess, with potato. Bread — two rather tired slices of granary — were supplied but not butter, until I asked for it. Rosemarie’s starter was a crayfish and avocado salad featuring an interesting assortment of green leaves and crunchy rings of cooked shallot, with a well-judged sweetish ginger dressing. This could also have been ordered in larger size as a main course, but it is hard to imagine that anyone could really have required very much more.

A fine chunk of roast hake — an undeservedly neglected fish — was her main course, with champ mashed potatoes (Irish style, with chopped spring onions), samphire and chive beurre blanc. Needing more salt, she asked for it and was dismayed when it came in one of those open dishes. without a spoon, that appear to invite diners to help themselves with their fingers, as if from a snuff box. This is an unhygienic practice that needs to be discouraged. I had three slices of pan-roast loin of pork (one surprisingly fatty) with a rich cassoulet containing borlotti beans, tender chunks of chorizo and halved new potatoes, sautéed.

For pudding, Rosemarie had a splendidly constructed chocolate fondant, whose piping hot interior erupted with the application of her spoon. Raspberry sorbet, with suitably toned down sweetening, was a very happy accompaniment. I ordered decaffeinated coffee and was impressed when our pleasant Australian waitress arrived from the kitchen to say none was available.

Impressed? Indeed so, my suspicion being that this is a subject on which I am fairly often told fibs in other establishments.