A few years ago, I worked for a while with a TV production company located just beneath an S&M brothel in a tumbledown building in London's Soho. Five times a day we would hear footsteps rising up the stairwell towards us, and then a tentative knock on the door. I would open it to find a raincoated man - always a raincoated man, even in summer - staring lasciviously at the door. And then he'd see me and look both afraid and disappointed.

I would swiftly direct him to follow the sound of the whiplash above.

I suspect it is a residual anxiety of knocking on Soho doors that has kept me away from Lindsay House for so long. To gain entry to chef Richard Corrigan's restaurant one must first ring the bell, a statement of exclusivity even more impressive than the prices on the menu, or, God help us, the phone numbers on the wine list. But I am a big boy now, and anyway, I have become weary of my Olympic-standard gastronaut friends shrieking at me: 'What! You've never been to Lindsay House?' as if I were some lousy fraud; as counterfeit as the Jew who passed on the cheesecake.

So one lunchtime I rang the bell, and I can therefore report that the premises at No 21 Romilly Street are not, in fact, a brothel. They are, instead, a restaurant with more exquisite means of dispensing pleasure than any of the bawdier establishments nearby. Recent big-ticket experiences, particularly at Petrus, have made me question the point of cooking at this level.

I had begun to wonder whether it really was just about complexity for complexity's sake. The answer, as proposed within the clean, Georgian, bare-boarded dining rooms of Lindsay House, is no, it is not about this. Corrigan is an Irishman who, as legend has it, grew up in a living version of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch: no electricity, no running water, licking road clean, that sort of thing. Whatever the reality, his food has about it an unencumbered and refreshing simplicity. He has technique and good taste, an agonisingly rare combination in London chefs these days.

I don't think anything could have improved my main-course pot au feu of beef, simmered to a tangle of velvet fibres with a single delicate ravioli of foie gras, the whole in a dark caramelised liquor that spoke of happy cow and happy field. My companion may have wrinkled her nose at the sight of sweetbreads and kidney alongside her lamb fillet and confited red peppers, but this is because she is a woman of no taste who does not understand the visceral appeal of offal. The dish was a reminder of the whole animal, rather than just some sanitised version of it.

I loved the clean acidity of a smoked haddock and mature Cheddar soup. I loved the autumn flavours in our two puddings, which were, in their combination of apple souffle and calvados ice cream for me, and apple and bramble crumble for her, a reminder of just how good a season this is in which to eat. I really did not love that wine list, which hid the bottles costing less than £23 so well that I could not find them.

But sometimes food is so good, it makes you forget the cost (£15 a starter, £25 a main course). Anyway, at lunchtimes there is a £23 menu. Lindsay House comes up with simple ideas, and then executes them well and with character. So save up. Ring the doorbell. It's worth it.

· Lindsay House, 21 Romilly Street, London W1 (020 7439 0450). Meal for two, including wine and service, £130.