A warm and sunny Sunday on the first of our two extended Bank Holiday weekends. Where better to enjoy lunch than on the terrace of the Old Parsonage Hotel, in Banbury Road?

Actually, I thought of somewhere better the moment we arrived and decided that for all the appeal of this very pretty spot, we would prefer to be indoors amid the antique furnishings and the fine collection of pictures — portraits mainly — that covers the red-painted walls of the dining room. Maybe we would have coffee outside later. We never did.

I have known the Parsonage since before it became the stylish place it is today. In the early days of its renovation from what had previously been a somewhat humdrum B&B establishment, I was shown over by owner Jeremy Mogford. (He had previously done the same thing in respect of Gee’s further along Banbury Road, and was to do it again a decade later when he began work on what became The Old Bank in the High Street.) Though it was fully 20 years ago, I still remember the special interest I felt in standing in a place often visited by Oscar Wilde in his days as a Magdalen College undergraduate. According to writer Martin Seymour-Smith, an Oxford pal of Wilde’s son Vyvyan Holland, he used the place for trysts with local tarts picked up in St Ebbe’s. It was here, apparently, that he decided he really preferred blokes.

I am a very regular visitor to the Old Bank’s Quod restaurant — I had a perfect spring lunch of Rofford Farm lamb, asparagus and Jersey Royals the day before our Parsonage visit — and to Gee’s, where this Monday (birthday treat for Rosemarie!) I dined on crab mayonnaise and halibut fillet with broad beans, asparagus and chive beurre blanc. But meals at the Old Parsonage are rather rarer. On the evidence of this Sunday lunch, this ought to change.

With various options of where to sit suggested, we eventually settled at a corner table close by an open window. Very satisfactory for me, with lots to look at in the paintings and fellow patrons; Rosemarie admitted later that the cushioned seating on her side of the table was a little unforgiving.

The menu was offered at a set price (£23.50 for two courses, £25.50 for three) with a selection of six dishes at each stage. Besides those we ordered there were, for instance, starters of artichoke ravioli and toasted goat’s cheese and watercress salad, main courses of pot au feu guinea fowl and pan-fried calves’ liver, and puddings of apple tart with cinnamon ice cream and rhubarb fool with stem ginger flapjack.

I began with smoked salmon, in what might be considered slightly Lord Lucan mode, especially with lamb, though not chops, to follow (the two dishes were evidently the only meal he wanted). He would, I feel sure, have been impressed by the quality of what was delivered here, curiously enough on a wooden platter which perhaps hardly squared with the “traditionally served” of the menu. Bread and French butter were both excellent. The main course of roast lamb brought the second taste of the spring lamb from Mr Mogford’s own farm, near Watlington; it was cooked to a perfect pink. I finished the meal with the cheeses, Isle of Mull cheddar, St Anthony’s soft goat’s cheese from Cornwall, and Colston Basset blue Stilton More adventurously, you might think. Rosemarie began with a starter (“absolutely delicious”) of parmesan soufflé with baby spinach salad and nutmeg crème fraîche, continued with salmon and haddock fish cake (“a bit dry” — so in need of the chive velouté that came with it) and finished with (“delectable” chocolate and almond fondant. More hits than misses, then.