CHRISTOPHER GRAY lets the train take the strain on a trip to the Miller of Mansfield in Goring

I formed a favourable impression of the Miller of Mansfield at Goring some time before it reopened, following extensive renovations. The advertisements for staff placed in the trade press by new owner Paul Suter seemed to me to strike the right stylish note and specify precisely the qualities necessary to run what was clearly going to be a place of some distinction.

How successful they proved in attracting talented and motivated staff was apparent throughout my first, thoroughly enjoyable, visit to this characterful hotel as couple of Saturday nights ago. The courteous attentions of manager Adam Bisset, a soft-spoken gentleman from the west of Scotland, were comforting without being in the least cloying. Other members of the serving staff were no less cheery and eager to please.

As for the kitchen team, though I didn't get to meet any of them, they supplied food of a quality that proved Mr Suter had found himself an ideal head chef in Cornishman Gavin Young. He and his colleagues make everything that's served here, including ice cream, bread, chutney, pasta, smoked and cured meat and fish, and chocolates. Besides his culinary skills, Gavin's recruitment offered an added bonus with connections at home providing an excellent source of fish.

The fact that Goring is in easy walking distance of Goring station, and we are five minutes on foot from Oxford's, suggested that I should, for once, leave the car behind. The service was ideally timed, with a train that delivered us in Goring just before 8pm and others to take us home at around 10pm or an hour or so after that. (In the event, dinner proved such a well-paced affair that we made the first of these.) Arriving at the hotel, we introduced ourselves at reception and then retired into the comforts of the bar with menus and glasses of a breezy Californian sauvignon blanc (Esperanza). Placing myself in one of the large leather armchairs you can see in one of Damian Halliwell's photograph, I was surprised to find myself vanishing backwards into its interior. This broke the ice with others in the room, some of whom had done the same thing. One chap was eating a bar meal of fish and chips, which he said were wonderful. He also praised the Miller's burgers.

Our sights, of course, were aimed rather higher as we moved into the white-walled dining room and a table at its centre. A Spanish guitarist called Don Perrera was providing the Saturday night entertainment from one corner. We could easily move if it was annoying us, advised Adam, but we found the music a pleasing touch.

So, too, was the amuse bouche of a tempura courgette flower filled with smoked haddock. No sooner had we dealt with this than the waitress appeared with two sorts of bread (walnut and raisin, and poppy, sesame and pumpkin seed) and three types of butter (blended with tomato, mustard and herbs).

The evening's a la carte menu featured five starters, including such tempting offerings as a summer herb soup with a poached quail's egg, and lamb's tongue terrine with pickled beetroot. I chose that Scandinavian favourite, gravadlax of salmon, which had been expertly prepared and came with pickled cucumber that nicely offset the sweetness of the fish.

There was sweetness, too, about Rosemarie's starter - an unusual, but well-judged dish of fried scallops coated with coconut served with a cup of coconut soup and salad leaves with a lemon grass dressing. She continued with a dish selected from that day's blackboard menu in the bar: pan-fried baby sole - presumably from one of Gavin's Cornish contacts. There were two, perfectly cooked and served with vierge sauce (butter and lemon) and spinach.

My main course of sea bream was chosen from the carte (on which roasted Cornish turbot and poached halibut also featured, alongside filet of dry aged Caledonian beef, ravioli of goat's cheese, and free-range chicken and lobster fricassee). The fish, served filleted with the skin intact, also came with vierge sauce as well as a splendid herb risotto in which the flavour of basil loomed large. It was attractively served above chopped red peppers and courgettes.

Three ways with blueberries (panna cotta, sorbet and muffin), and orange and vanilla creme brulee with marinated strawberries, both sounded very tempting puddings. But Rosemarie opted in the end for a superb dark chocolate tart (even the pastry was chocolate flavoured) with pistachio ice cream.

Feeling that I should have a healthier end to dinner, I asked whether fruit would be possible. Certainly, said Adam - and the kitchen obliged with a wonderful fruit salad featuring pineapple, apple, oranges, plums, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Good intentions evaporated, however, with coffee, since it came with a plate of home-made petit fours in which there was no shortage of either sugar or fat.

Throughout this first-class meal we had been drinking a lively Italian white wine, Gavi, 2005, from Terredavino's new winery in Barolo. Adam told me that he and his colleagues had considered the wine - made entirely from Cortese grapes - a 'stand-out' during a tasting as they sorted out suitable wines for the hotel's list. After one sip of this citrussy delight, I could see what they meant.