Ambleside, Cumbria (01539 436 347). Meal for two, including drinks and service: £100

It begins with a small cup of a chicken broth that tastes like the very best stuff you get when you run your finger guiltily around the bottom of the roasting pan. Hidden in the depths are pieces of bacon fried to a crunch, as if they are the crispy bits that get caked to the tin when you roast a chicken properly. The broth is whizzed up with a little cream and is foaming slightly at the edges. I spoon this down, and know straight away that everything is going to be all right.

The Drunken Duck Inn, high on a wooded hill above the Lakeland village of Ambleside, is the kind of place anybody would like to find at the end of a day's walking if they were a walker, which I am not. I don't have the feet for it. Or the ankles. Or, to be honest, the inclination. It's simply against my religion. Jews don't walk. We get cabs. But if some sadist had forced me to spend a day doing what I could do so much better in, say, a sedan chair, I would fall upon the knowing sophistication of this inn as heaven sent.

There's the flag-stoned bar area, with its guttering fire and moody lighting; there's the simple dining rooms which avoid all the folksy tropes of a Lakeland pub; there's the offer of both its own brewed beers and a chalk board full of smartly chosen wines. Obviously I was meant to try one of the local beers, because I am Man with Beard. But over the age of 40 there are many things for which you no longer need apologise. Ignoring beer and ordering a glass of a Provençal rosé is one of them. It was very nice, thank you.

The menu is defined by one dish in particular: a whole roasted cherry-glazed duck, with red cabbage and duck-fat potatoes, for two to share. Whole birds – indeed all sharing dishes – are the point where the domestic kitchen meets the professional. Going out for dinner is supposed to be about what "I" want, rather than the "we". Restaurants are a shared moment of selfishness. But a hulking offer like this can make it so much more.

It arrives as the two breasts, the fat perfectly rendered, the skin crisp, the meat still pink, alongside the legs which give the impression of having been confited. There is gravy. There are very good potatoes, the right side of crisp. There is crunchy sweet-and-sour red cabbage, and a dish of wilted spinach for those hankering for greens to soak up the duck fat. I won't pretend; I was a little disappointed we didn't get the rest of the carcass so I could sit there and pick the rest of the skin off until my fingers shone with grease. But that would have been an ugly sight, and my companions should be grateful they were spared it. For two, £44 felt like good value, for a generous piece of cooking.

That one dish summed up the strengths of the kitchen: solid in all the classical techniques, without feeling the need to do anything ludicrously showy. Baked crab cannelloni delivered a big hit of that rich seafood tang that hot brown meat does so well. Three fat scallops were treated with care and respect. A main course of veal blanquette suggested someone has a copy of Larousse Gastronomique knocking about (though the new edition with all the nice pictures, rather than the old one where the sauces are the colour and texture of a brown velour DFS sofa). The meat fell apart under its sweet overcoat of onion soubise; you could smell that dish right down the table, in a good way.

A blood orange and thyme soufflé sounded overwrought, but really wasn't, it would have passed anybody's skills test, and a panna cotta wasn't too shabby either. It had the requisite mammarian wobble. Was everything perfect? No. A starter of pigeon was a little lacklustre and came with a quail Scotch egg with the hardest of yolks; a treacle tart at the other end of the meal was a little stodgy. But I record these only for the sake of full disclosure. The Drunken Duck Inn will feed you well and make you very grateful you made the effort to get there.

Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit theguardian.com/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place. Follow Jay on Twitter @jayrayner1