I had a fight outside The Bridge once. Classic beery 70s confrontation: us in high-waist Oxford bags and fedoras; them, suedeheads, in Harringtons and Doc Martins. Hard to run in six-inch stacks, as I recall. In those days, Manchester's restaurants, whatever their advertised ethnicity, all had the same wine list: chianti and Hirondelle, with Mateus rosé, liebfraumilch and lambrusco for the laydeez. Sarnies, scratchings and eggs, Scotch or pickled, were about as far as most pubs fayred.

Of course, we are now all apparatchiks of the food revolution. Our food vocabulary is wide - we know our linguine from our penne, our dhansak from our vindaloo. Starbuckaccinos are swamping the wine bar market, and pubs are selling fewer pints and more food, hence the rise of the gastropub. Some of these are great, but others are simply modish multi-ethnic restaurants with a vestigal bar attached, and lack the conviviality of the pub or the polish of a restaurant. For a taste of the food of today in a pub of the past, I return to The Bridge.

It is now owned by Manchester chef Robert Owen Brown who, from his snap on the website, looks keen to fight all-comers, including any fey interior designer with designs on the decor. As in 1979, the tables fight with the mis-matched chairs, and everything scraps with the swirly Axminster. The eating bit is in the back, behind the bawdy bar. There are candles on the tables, but no linen. Instead, all your money goes into the kitchen, from where really good local food is served. Mr Owen Brown is not cooking when I visit, but is out shooting wild pigeons for tomorrow's specials board.

The menu is a litany to Lancashire, albeit one littered with typos and seasoned with a certain hyperbole. I have "the knight of black puddings, Andy Holt's Bury link". I went to school in Bury, and Andy speaketh the truth: I defy you to eat better black pudding anywhere. My link is accessoried with an emulsion of Colman's mustard and a sprig of wild watercress.

My brother Simon has a Horseshoe Farm goose egg, which comes with Lancashire cheese soldiers - witty, apt, rich and delicious. Owen Brown offers breast of chicken stuffed with Kirkham's cheese and ham, a nice take on veal cordon bleu, but I award the red ribbon to the English boated cod, stacked on a brilliant mushy pea potato cake. Simon has a rib-eye steak with "famous duck fat chips", which are excellent. And fat. I push the boat out with an eccles cake with cream, which sits correctly heavy in my stomach for the rest of the day and much of the next.

Though food of this quality deserves good wine (there is a good list, bottles £10 to £95), the suroundings suggest rather an aperitif of vodka and orange, followed by lager and lime, then port and black. Very well fed, and somewhat over-refreshed, the only fight I have now is the struggle to leave.

· The Bridge, 58 Bridge Street, Deansgate, Manchester (0161-834 0242, thebridgemanchester.co.uk). Meal for two including wine around £50. Less if you have lager and lime.