Telephone: 01628 898101
Address: 31 West Street, Marlow, Bucks.
Rating: 17.5/20

What is going on in the Thames Valley? For years it was a graveyard for any chef of talent or ambition. Famously, neither Nico Ladenis nor John Burton-Race could persuade the well-heeled residents of Thames-side villas to part with their money at L'Ortolan just outside Reading, and, with the glowing exceptions of the Waterside Inn at Bray and the Beetle And Wedge at Moulsford, no eatery of quality seemed to last round these parts. Now, L'Ortolan is flourishing, so I hear, the Fat Duck has joined the Waterside Inn in Bray, the Nettlebed has put down a marker just up the road from Henley, as reviewed a few weeks back, and now Marlow, Henley's doppelgänger downstream, has its own fine dining establishment, the Vanilla Pod.

It is quite the smallest restaurant of its kind that I have eaten in for ages. It was seating not far short of its full complement of 30 when I joined my bother Tom, his wife Helen, and Katie, aged three months, for lunch in the half timber, burnt siena/umber/straw-coloured dining room one Wednesday.

There is something disarmingly holistic about seeing a young mother tucking into a raviolo of confit rabbit on garlic cream and herb salad, followed by braised short rib of beef with horseradish mashed potato, parsley shallots and red-wine sauce, followed by chocolate fondant with pistachio cream, while her baby is silently taking nourishment further down the food chain, as it were, with the same evident pleasure. And not an eyebrow was raised, not a murmur was uttered about the presence of Katie. She and her mother were very discreet about the feeding arrangements, but it was another welcome sign of the evolution in British public eating practices.

The Vanilla Pod is the creation of Michael Macdonald and his wife, who are as English as can be. He has worked alongside some of the great names in the business, including Herbert Berger, Nico Ladenis, Pierre Koffman and Eric Chavot.

As a result of this, it is not surprising that the food at the Vanilla Pod, like the numerous waiters and waitresses - four for 30 consumers - is French; not so French as to be a little corner of la Vallée de la Loire in the Thames Valley, but French in technique, saucing and style, even if the integration of vegetables into the dishes was more of an English touch.

I claimed the fixed-price menu - £13.50 for two courses, £15.50 for three - and from the choice of two menus I got escabeche of fennel with red mullet; confit of duck leg with écrasées (ie, crushed, not mashed) potatoes and Madeira sauce; and raspberry panna cotta with pickled raspberry and lemon sorbet. Brother Tom ended up with scallops with vanilla-poached pear compote of red onion and vanilla gastrique, because I told him to - I thought one of us at least should have a dish containing vanilla; rump of lamb Provençal; and white chocolate tart, all of which came off the à la carte, which is priced at £25.50 for three courses.

I mention the prices up front, because, at this level, they represent some of the best-value food in the country. The cooking is beautifully imagined, marvellously assured, impeccably judged. OK, so there's nothing novel about an escabeche of fennel with red mullet or confit of duck leg, but when they are flawlessly executed, when the balance of the elements of each dish is perfectly realised, you just know that you are in the hands of an exceptional chef.

Even the more outré dishes - the scallop with the vanilla pear, which is not a combination that immediately springs to mind - worked because the union of flavours had been carefully thought through and painstakingly adjusted to create a sequence of sensations. The more straightforward dishes delivered the goods for much the same reasons. The basics were marvellously well done - the soft pasta for the single, fat raviolo, the sweet and melting rabbit inside, and the creamy, gentle-mannered garlic cream that went with it; the precise cooking of the meats; the complete rendering of the fat from the duck leg; the silky ease of the mash; the smart use of pistachio cream inside the biscuity chocolate fondant; the delicacy of the tart base and the richness of its filling; above all, the superb characterisation of the sauces for each dish. It would have been very hard to find fault with anything we ate - and at these prices, it would have been churlish to try.

After experiences at Hibiscus last year, and at Juniper, Lola's, the Fat Duck and now the Vanilla Pod in this, I am inclined to think that we may be on the verge of a golden age of British restaurateuring. Five original and seriously talented chefs may not be quite enough to make a ringing declaration yet, but a few more serving up food of the originality and accomplishment that these manage, and, well, who knows?

· Open The restaurant is closed until September 10, but you can book now. Lunch, Mon-Fri, 12 noon-2pm; dinner, Tues-Sat, 7pm-10pm. Menus: Lunch, £13.50 for two courses, £15.50 for three; lunch & dinner, £25.50 for three courses; menu gourmand, £35 for six courses. No wheelchair access or WC.