Press - Yorkshire Post 01/09/09

And though it's lovely to have somewhere nice to eat, if it costs a bomb, is packed with tourists, and leaves you nowhere near your house to have a pint, it might not be a welcome change.

I don't know if avoiding this pitfall was an explicit part of the strategy behind renovating Kirkby Fleetham's Black Horse. But what is clear is that the owners have done a fine job. It's beautiful, with an upmarket feel that will no doubt make it a tourist magnet, but it's also thronged with locals.

A quick chat with a friendly chap behind the bar is illuminating – it turns out the people we spotted in the field at the far end of the car park, out beyond the pretty pub garden, are playing quoits no less. The Black Horse is one of the few places with a proper pitch, and the new management have been pleased to allow games to continue.

They even recently hosted a village pool competition, and there's a dartboard in the end room – not something you'll find in many gastropubs.

Of course, there's more on offer than sporting distractions, and on the night we visit, both the restaurant and the bar are bustling. A bit of eavesdropping reveals just as many local accents as there are obvious tourist voices.

We start with a pint in the bar, and at about £2.50 a pint the prices are bound to go down well locally. The house wine comes at just £10 a bottle too. With a seat at a window table we take the opportunity to nosey about a little.

Apparently the pub, which opened in July, took only 13 weeks to refit, despite everything but the walls being new. Thankfully while it's certainly light and fresh, it's been sympathetically done. Natural materials abound – stone floors, wooden furniture with bags of character – and the quirky layout has been retained, with a fair few Mind Your Head signs.

And it doesn't take itself too seriously either. Humour is present everywhere – a cushion embroidered with "the best thing about memory loss is that you meet new people every day" being a favourite of ours.

Before moving into the restaurant we take starters in the bar. We've opted to share one of their three speciality boards. Each is a wooden block with an array of locally sourced titbits.

The fish board is perfect bar food – rustic and hearty but not without style. Our board for two (£10) offers chunky but tender pieces of house-cured salmon, two fabulously fresh and briny rock oysters and some densely flavoured little blobs of shredded Whitby crab.

The star of this display however is the Kilner jar stuffed with smoked mackerel pate, which we smear rather too generously on the fresh bread provided. It is rich and buttery stuff. The adjoining restaurant space is more peaceful than the bar, but it's hardly stiff, and the happy buzz that pervades this place is just as present here.

We order a lovely Chateau Saint Romans Bordeaux at a very reasonable £17 and enjoy the subtle smoky flavours while we wait for our main courses. This actually turns out to be a fair while – well, the place is heaving and it's very early days – but the delay is forgiven the minute we sample our dishes.

We've heard the chef has Michelin experience and hails from Seaham Hall, and that York based wonder-chef Jeff Baker has acted as consultant.

All of this is evident in the food. My rump of Yorkshire lamb is excellent: rich, tender and perfectly pink. With a swoosh of bright green broccoli puree, delicate confit tomatoes and spots of rich rosemary and garlic jus, it looks far more sophisticated than the price (£14.50) suggested it would. And the flavour lives up to the look too. You might expect corned beef hash with campfire beans (£8.50) to look rather less refined, but it's very cleverly presented.

The dish looks a bit like three posh scotch eggs arranged around a bowl of beans, but actually it's shredded beef rolled into balls around a centre of soft potato and quickly fried to create a crisp shell.

The beef is heartily seasoned, but not too heavily, and well matched by the deep smoked flavour of the beans.

Sides of lyonnaise potatoes and spring greens are just as well-judged and sit well alongside this mix of country pub rustic and restaurant sophistication.

The same is true of dessert, a burnt custard cream with vanilla shortbread and the "Elizabeth David flourless chocolate and almond cake" (both £4) are elegant, satisfying and astoundingly good value.

In fact that phrase just about sums it all up – £70 for all that plus coffee. Somehow they've found the right formula. That means simple food that's affordable – but done with sufficient finesse to make it feel like a real treat – in an authentic local pub that is now worth travelling miles to find.