I have ventured fairly frequently lately into that region of pseudo-Italy that is Oxford’s George Street.

At the end of last month I sampled roast turkey pizza (surprisingly good, since you ask) at Fire & Stone. Last Thursday, I enjoyed a Christmas dinner with friends at Jamie’s Italian which demonstrated (sensational roasted whole bream with fennel!) that this big, buzzy place just gets better and better. Two nights before, I was at Zizzi, which has recently had a tasteful revamp and where I found food of a high standard too.

We’d hot-footed it from the New Theatre and Welsh National Opera’s Ariadne auf Naxos. Various technical gremlins had delayed the start of our heroine’s closing love duet with her rescuer Bacchus, and when its meandering Wagnerian delights were over I felt much in need of the sort of relief with which this god is principally associated — the sort supplied by a bottle.

Safely settled in Zizzi, we were soon well into glasses of Trebbiano, the restaurant’s cheapest white, but a fine one all the same with its refreshing citrussy taste. Though it was 10pm, half an hour after the time I’d booked for, we were not hurried over our order — a good thing, since the menu has lots to choose from in a wide range of starters, pastas, salads, meat and fish dishes and an impressive tally of ten puds. There are also plenty of pizzas, including “bigger, thinner, crispier” and more topping-laden ones in new ‘Rustica’ style.

There are changing blackboard specials, too, from which I picked my starter of zuppa fagioli. This classic Tuscan white bean soup was such a delight — rich, thick, herby and with plenty of celery — that I can’t think why it isn’t always available. (Strangely there is no soup, not even minestrone, on the regular menu.) Rosemarie started with Angelo’s mussels — another new dish — commenting that it seemed a pity to deprive him of so well-judged a dish, for which juicy mussels, in their shells, are simmered in tomatoes, white wine, onions, chilli, garlic and parsley. These ingredients, incidentally, are all listed in the menu; here, commendably, is a restaurant that supplies full details of its dishes for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the cuisine.

For her main course Rosemarie chose lasagne al forno. This is a favourite dish of hers (and of very many other people). I feel pretty confident were I to dig out my review of Zizzi on its opening eight years ago that I would find she had ordered it then. This one, she reported, was exactly as she liked it, with a thick, rich ragu and greater solidity, too, than is sometimes found in both the pasta and bechamel. She does not like slop.

Had we read the menu carefully, and noticed that the lasagne came with mixed salad, I would not (since Rosemarie does not enjoy salad) have wasted £3.55 on an identical assortment of dressed leaves, baby plum tomatoes and red onion to go with my sea bass al vino. There was too much of the vino, as it turned out. Though it tasted very good, the pan-fried fish did not look appetising adrift in a brown sea of sauce. The herbed potatoes were excellent, though there were too many for all but the biggest trencherpersons.

Not being one, I decided to pass on pudding, though I lent a hand (or rather spoon) to Rosemarie and her soft-centred hot chocolate melt with ice cream. Aren’t I kind?