Acar alarm that went off in the night (and again the following morning) led directly to my first visit to Michel at the George. Handily adjacent to Motorworld in Botley Road, the pub was the obvious place for a cup of coffee while the pesky vehicle was attended to. Readers who know about such things will now have me marked down — correctly — as a Volvo driver. On the evidence of what I saw on Sunday afternoon, as thousands of Oxford students returned from their summer break, this would appear to qualify me to be the father of an undergraduate. “Parents must own Volvo” appears almost to be an Oxford entry requirement to judge by how many of these cars were stacked outside the college lodges.

Michel at the George is a new name that signals the arrival at an ancient and rather handsome pub of a man very well known on the Oxford catering scene. Rehearsing the long career of Michel Sadones would take the whole of this page and possibly another besides. Suffice it to say that his work in the city began with André Chavagnon at La Sorbonne (where I first met him and where co-workers included one Raymond Blanc), continued with his own restaurants in St Clement’s, Clarendon Street, Wheatsheaf Yard (Ma Belle) and elsewhere, and has since 2003 involved him running a busy mobile crêperie business which (among much else) caters for Creation Theatre’s productions.

As he poured coffee on my Friday morning visit, he introduced me to Phil Radbourne, his business partner in the new venture (which is to run alongside the creperie). His long experience in the licensed trade in Oxford includes, most recently, four years in charge of the Woodstock Arms, in Woodstock Road. This is soon to be demolished to make way for an old people’s home. Like so many pubs lately, it had proved surplus to requirements. The same fate might have awaited The George, another Greene King property, had the new partnership, proposed during a chance meeting between Michel and Phil at a cash and carry, not come about.

Delighted by the smart new look of the place and by what I saw of the menu — including as it does many of my Michel ‘favourites’ from down the years (though not so far his trademark côte de boeuf) — I decided to return the following evening for dinner with Rosemarie and her mother.

This was a venue where any form of subterfuge was never going to be possible, so there was no reason not to be upfront with my booking. We arrived (bus to the park and ride opposite) shortly after 8pm to find Michel’s son Josh doing his stuff behind the bar, and providing occasional assistance to Phil who was acquiring a new skill waiting at the tables in the attractive conservatory restaurant. I remember this as an outdoor terrace in the days of then landlord Clive Lawes, who mounted an annual sausage-eating contest there in the middle years of the seventies.

Having been shown to our table, we made short work of our orders, since appealing dishes jumped out from the menu. The food is described by its creator — neatly, I thought, and accurately as it turned out — as “traditional French cuisine with no fusion or confusion but as always with natural flair, passion and certainty”.

My starter was Michel’s robustly authentic Marseillaise fish soup, which was served with crispy garlic croutons, and little pots of tangy rouille and grated cheese. Rosemarie selected another French classic, moules marinière, featuring a big bowl of good-size mussels, in a white wine and cream sauce with shallots and chopped parsley.

Olive passed on a starter, which was perhaps a wise move, in view of the size of her portion of filet de porc Normand that followed. The rounds of tender meat came in a thick cream, mushroom and coriander sauce, with sauté potatoes as an accompaniment. Rosemarie, realising that the moules and accompanying bread were likely to be filling, had asked for a starter portion of coquilles Saint-Jacques to follow. Four big scallops, complete with coral, came pan-fried in garlic butter with julienne vegetables and creamy mashed potatoes.

My fancy was for pasta, so I chose tagliatelle, slippery smooth and with just the right ‘bite’, served with sliced breast of chicken, and a garlic and white wine sauce.

After this, it was my turn to hold back, while my companions enjoyed puddings. Olive’s was selected from the (understandably) extensive range of crêpes — a pancake with maple syrup and raspberries. It was greatly enjoyed, as was Rosemarie’s rich chocolate mousse. This is a favourite Michel creation which makes use (as he told us) of lots of Cadbury’s dark Bourneville chocolate. He told us, too, of one of his sons, for whom this is a favourite dish. On the point of opening a French restaurant in faraway Taiwan, Joseph rang just hours before to ask dad for the recipe!