Let us first pay a little attention to the name: 4500 miles from Delhi. When I first saw the words spelled out above the plate-glass windows as the new restaurant in Park End Street began to take shape a few months back, I remember thinking: "That doesn't seem very far." I had assumed, of course, that 4,500 miles was indeed the exact distance from Oxford to Delhi. The fact that the same small company has another establishment in Nottingham called 4550 Miles from Delhi - note the 50-mile difference - only served to underline that we're talking accurate geography here.

But I wonder on what authority these distances are so confidently stated? After a little research on the Internet, I discovered various claims for the distance between Delhi and London (the only English city I expected to figure in the statistics). Two of them, in fact, were considerably less than is claimed in the name. Wiki Anwers says it's 4,162 miles between the two capitals; Yahoo Answers that it's 4,170. At the other extreme, a distance chart put out by www.mapsofworld.com, says that it's 5,907 between the city's airports. Clearly, aircraft don't imitate crows in the matter of flying in a direct and straight line.

Anyway, enough of this - what matters to me is not the restaurant's distance from the Indian capital but how far it is from my house. And the good news is that it's not very far at all. Indeed, it has now become my 'local' Indian. No doubt I shall make other visits in the months ahead, for on the evidence of my first trip it is my kind of place.

To be honest, Rosemarie and I made no extensive sampling of the menu. In fact, it had been my intention before this piece appeared to pop back to try some of the interesting-looking starters - the ginger-flavoured lamb chops (Adraki Champs) or perhaps the garlic and ajwain-laced cod fillets (Fish Amritsari). Alas, other engagements intervened.

Our first visit followed the launch of the Woodstock Celebrates Books festival and was more in the vein of a 'quick meal on the way home'. Rosemarie made no bones about going for comfort food with her order of chicken tikka masala. As the menu explains: "Invented by the world-famous - unknown - British Curry House chef c1980 as a way of exploiting his already popular chicken tikka. We present our own exclusive recipe."

Since it both looked and tasted like almost every other chicken tikka masala she has eaten, Rosemarie was happy indeed. She found the sauce soothing without being bland, and the chicken both tender and flavoursome.

I, too, went for chicken, in the form of Chicken Tawa, which I ate with a side order of creamed spinach with Indian cheese, cumin seeds and garlic. The dish consisted of juicy chunks of meat cooked on the tawa (a flat griddle pan), with coarsely chopped onions, tomatoes, fresh coriander and crushed peppercorns. Had I so wished, I could have watched the cooking process since this is one of those restaurants which - confident of their chefs' ability (good temper? cleanliness in the kitchen?) - allows them to perform their culinary wizard on public view.

I preferred to continue my assault on the poppadoms and the deliciously fresh tasting quartet of pickles and chutneys. For others, I suspect, the traditional pastime of people-watching would have exerted its special appeal. This is, after all, a place of undeniably chic design - as Yuri Anderegg's photographs show - where people go to see and be seen. Which is what a great many customers will continue doing later, I guess, in some of the many bars and clubs in Oxford's trendiest area for nightlife.