Telephone: 01728 602331
Address: 31 High Street, Saxmundham, Suffolk
Rating: 16.5/20

I fell in head over heels in love with the Bell Hotel the moment I tottered in off the street in Saxmundham, laden with plunder from a second-hand bookshop. Heaven knows if Andrew and Catherine Blackburn - chef, proprietors, concierge, front-of-house, bar keepers and general factotums - intended this, but it was like stepping back 50 or so years to a time when there were steam trains, two posts a day and all cars were black. There was something about the quiet of the hallway, the unadorned nature of the walls, the gleaming wood panelling, the shadowed corners and comfortable chairs, that called to mind another, less frantic age. This was the way country hotels used to be: modest, decent, clean and tranquil.

After being beaten around the psyche by over-designed, over-hyped, overpriced London restaurants, this was a sanctuary of civility. For a while I sat alone in the dining room, soaking up the pleasure that is in a pint of Adnams and getting the measure of the genteel qualities of wallpaper of wide white and green stripes, brass candelabra and light fittings, big sash windows framed by curtains pretty with blowsy flowers, polished floor the colour of amber, crisp linen and fine glass. It was a room that spoke of personal taste, not designer budget, of family virtues, not corporate values. Presently, Tucker and Tracy, Cressida and Troilus bowled in, and filled the place with noise and good humour and calls for food.

The food, thank heavens, did not hark back to the culinary miseries of the immediate postwar years. Terrine of skate with new potatoes and black olives 50 years ago? I think not. Nor seared sea trout on a risotto of leeks and herbs or twice baked blue cheese soufflé with green beans and walnuts. Between us, we put together a selection of: roasted quail pie; cream of celery and butter bean soup; the skate terrine; the trout; chicken breast with baby onions and vanilla sauce; duck breast with lentils and bacon; fillet of beef with char-grilled vegetables and a pesto crust; the soufflé; and tagliatelle without the advertised shiitake mushrooms and globe artichokes, because 12-year old Cressida was not sure she was up to the vegetables, but with garlic butter, which the kitchen was happy to switch to; vanilla and almond blancmange; chocolate tart with coffee ice cream; blueberry muffin with vanilla ice cream; and medleys of ice cream for Cressida and Troilus.

There were many virtues about the cooking. It was a nice mixture of classic and contemporary. It was coherent, well-balanced, neatly put together, with a finely judged palate for combinations - fresh celery with earthy butter beans; the airy breath of fresh herbs and little leeks with dainty sea trout; softly fibrous skate with firm, nutty new potatoes and salty black olives; the perfumes of vanilla and almond in the blancmange. Tucker's quail pie - neatly dissected bird in a rich, focused stock under a tile of excellent pastry - was as delicious as it was plain; and his duck dish had been carried out with irreproachable skill.

There was the odd detail that raised an eyebrow. One combination, in particular, provoked fierce debate. Vanilla combined with chicken was a spice too far for nine-year-old Troilus, and his mother found it odd, while I found it odd, but rather pleasing. It gave an almost liquorice quality to the sauce. You either like these things or you don't. I did, they didn't. We all agreed that pesto does not do many favours to good beef fillet; and I think some aspic or gelatine had been added to the rennet to beef up the blancmange, so the texture was altogether too robust, although the flavours were delicate and delicious.

The afternoon wore on. Lemonades were drunk, and wine, and water, and the bill came to £143.90 -or, more revealingly, £84.25 for solid matter, £59.65 for liquid. That is five people eating very well for less than £20 a head. And we were allowed to roam freely between the lunch menus at £10.50 for two courses and £13.50 for three, and the à la carte menu, which runs from £4.50 to £15.25, all of which makes the pricing of most metropolitan, and many country, restaurants look unacceptably gross. Either way, it was a snip for food of this accomplishment and a lunch of unalloyed pleasure.

· Open Lunch, Tues-Sun, 12 noon-2.30pm; dinner, Tues-Sat, 6-9.30pm. Menus Lunch, £10.50 for two courses; £13.50 for three; dinner, £16 for three courses. Wheelchair access.