Dined on Monday of last week in the Great Hall at Christ Church where the table decoration immediately in front of me was a beautifully detailed silver model of a horse – a trophy awarded until the Second World War at the annual point-to-point races of the Bullingdon Club.

Two days later I was thinking of ‘The Bullers’ once again during a delicious dinner at The Thatch in Thame, this being the restaurant notoriously trashed by the club at one of its get-togethers in the early 1980s, when it was known as Thatchers.

Though the name probably had more to do with roofing material, there being a handsome thatch atop of the ancient timbered building, it was tempting to assume that there may have been some reference intended to the then Prime Minister. This impression was confirmed when a subsequent owner – presumably not a Tory – renamed the place The Old Trout.

More recently, as the establishment run by Jeremy and Jane Hooper, the winners of the first series of Raymond Blanc’s BBC2 series The Restaurant, it was given another change of name as Eight at the Thatch. With their departure, after only seven months, it became simply The Thatch.

Its new owners are the mightily successful Peach Pubs, founded by Hamish Stoddart and Lee Cash, an early disciple, if he will accept the description, of Raymond’s who went on to serve as a judge on The Restaurant. Their growing empire includes two other pub/restaurants in Oxfordshire – The Fleece in Witney and The Fishes in North Hinksey – which are both firm favourites of mine.

The company’s commitment to ethically sourced, seasonal and locally produced ingredients – one reason, I feel sure, for its success – is spelt out clearly at the top of The Thatch’s menu, as it is on the menus at those other places. Peach regulars will recognise further features that go down well elsewhere, including deli boards. These offer a pleasing variety of foodstuffs (cheeses, charcuterie, antipasti, fishy things) from which can be fashioned, at a cost of £1.75 per item, nibbles, starters or a substantial sharing platter. There are also (a bright idea) five dishes that can be either a starter or main course.

Three of these, as it happens, figured among our choices last week, when Rosemarie and I were joined for dinner by our friends Gerald and Clico. They are Thame locals who have known the place in its many guises over the years (and who unambiguously stated after this outing that the latest is the best).

In two cases they were starters. I chose lamb souvlaki, a skewer of tender well-cooked meat, with toasted pitta bread, mint yoghurt and a well-dressed herb salad. Gerald had pea and broad bean risotto and said it was obvious much trouble had been taken over it. The rice was not too soft, not too hard, with the perfect degree of gooeyness.

For her starter Clico enjoyed a generous portion of smoked eel, sitting on a bed of very fresh, not too vinegary celery remoulade, while Rosemarie took the deli board option with slices of excellent salami, delicious marinated anchovies and a little pot of peppered mackerel paté (not as peppered as she would have liked).

She continued from the either/or range with a main course portion of the haddock smoky. Big chunks of smoked haddock were offered in a rich tomato sauce with a topping of grilled cheese. I was equally pleased with my salmon and caper fishcake, which for once proved to be much more fish than potato, in a crisply cooked outer casing. It came with wilted (and very buttery!) spinach and sorrel butter sauce. Clico completed a trio of happy fish eaters with the night’s fish special, bream, which she thought “exquisite”. She praised the “droolingly good crunchy skin and the very interesting bed of chopped shallots, mixed with mushroom and I think lemon juice”.

Since this was The Thatch’s Wednesday Carnivores’ Night, featuring a range of top-quality steaks supplied by the much-admired local butcher, Newitts, we were fortunate that we had Gerald to wave the flag for us in this respect. Though he failed to secure a partner for the £42 cote de boeuf for two (we saw an example being gamely polished off by a couple at the next table), he went for a huge and juicy rump which was made the more appealing through having been brought raw to the table for his inspection on a wooden platter. While he found the meat wonderful, he was less happy with the accompanying cabbage and leek – not an ideal mixture, he thought.

To finish, we all sampled a shared lemon tart of classic French construction and a plate of three cheeses – Quenby Hall Stilton, a mild brie and strong Westcombe Cheddar, all of which were in perfect condition.

This was a delightful occasion which must be repeated – soon.