It is a fact of life today – unpalatable though it is to some – that many pubs of the traditional English style must either adapt or close. The Exeter Hall in Cowley (but only just) is one that has adapted.

Since last December, what had for most of its existence been a friendly neighbourhood boozer, with an accent on beer-swilling and darts, has been functioning primarily as a restaurant known as The Indian Room.

True, its owner Kyrul Islam is trying to maintain something of the pub style in the smaller of its two rooms, with draught beer on tap (though not hand-pumped), but so far this appears to function more as a waiting room to the restaurant and pick-up place for takeaway meals which, as with most Asian restaurants, is an important part of the business.

Mr Islam can boast a long pedigree in the trade. Though he has been in Britain himself only since the mid-1970s, his father had been running restaurants in Oxford for two decades before that (and continued to until 1988, when he sold the Moti Mahal in St Clements). His earliest had been the Cobra, in St Ebbe’s, the name of which caused me to prick up my ears when his son mentioned it. This had been a popular haunt of journalists and other reprobates half a century ago, as the novelist and one-time Oxford Mail literary editor Brian Aldiss described in his autobiography, The Twinkling of an Eye.

“The Cobra,” he said disobligingly – and I am pretty sure jokingly – “so called, one always assumed, because the food was poison.” He recalled, too, late-night sessions once the place had ‘closed’ in which beer and dal soup were served until the early hours. This was a very welcome facility, I don’t doubt, in those days before the relaxation of licensing laws.

Mr Islam’s own career includes stints in various Oxford restaurants, as well as periods in London and Southampton. For the past eight years he has been running The Taste of India, which like The Indian Room operates out of a pub owned by Punch Taverns, in this case The Chequers at Horspath.

Business has been building nicely for him since the new operation began. Its hinterland location, at the precise spot where Oxford ends and Cowley begins – the address is 1 Oxford Road – is perhaps not the most favourable, but the quality of its food keeps the customers packing in.

There were few empty tables on the recent Saturday night that Rosemarie and I visited, with our guest Andy, a friend of mine for 40 years who was in Oxford for a few days staying at his old college. He was ahead of us, and already enjoying a glass of red wine in the ‘pub’ side when we pitched up hot-foot, and hungry, from a party. Having been taken through to the restaurant, the good design of which is evident from Jon Lewis’s photographs, we, too, ordered a drink, the Chilean sauvignon blanc house white, while we nibbled papadoms and pickles and made our choices from the menu.

This covers the range of dishes generally found in such establishments, with divisions into Fish, Tandoori Specials, Masala, Duck, Balti, Old Favourites (Korma, Dansak, Rogan josh and the like) and Specials (12 of these, including chicken breast stuffed with lamb, Khandahar chicken, from Afghanistan, and Sisilia chicken, with sambuca).

Our orders made, the kitchen functioned quickly in the despatch of our food, all of which was most appetisingly presented.

I started with salmon tikka in which the marinated fish was cooked to juicy perfection in the tandoor. Rosemarie enjoyed Malay tikka, which featured breast of chicken marinated in egg, butter and cheese. Eschewing spices at this stage, Andy had grilled tiger prawns with lemon, butter and garlic. Other starters included trout with coconut, garlic mussels, marinated duck and (of course) onion bhajis and sheek kebabs.

For the main course, I went for one of the Indian Room Specials, Mazadar chicken. This consisted of pieces of very tender breast meat in a thick spicy sauce with whole cumin seeds and plenty of ginger. To offset the heat of the dish, I was glad to dip into the shared portions of sag daal (spinach with lentils) and Aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower), both of which had a good fresh taste about them. From a range of fancier-than-usual rice dishes (including offerings featuring carrots, cumin, minced lamb and mushrooms) I chose the one enlivened with garlic. Rosemarie had ‘Beef Sizzler’, which came more in the form of a thick stew than the dryish dish she expected. Andy greatly enjoyed his chicken jalfrezi, a hot dish featuring green chillis, garlic and ginger.

That’s another example of the dish you can see on the left in the hands of chef Lokus Miah. After the picture was taken, Jon was delighted to be allowed to eat the plateful. He greatly enjoyed it too.