Telephone: 020-7609 3560
Address: 489 Liverpool Road, London N7
Rating: 17/20

I knew that I was going to like Morgan M as soon as I saw the sheep. There was a cow, too, and some hens, all wandering around, free as you like. This is not the kind of sight you expect to find on a less than pukka side street just off the socially challenging end of Liverpool Road, London N7. It is one of the few city farms and, for a glorious moment, I fantasised that this represented the supply line for the kitchen. Or perhaps not.

The "M" in Morgan M stands for Meunier; until recently, Morgan Meunier was the head chef at the Admiralty, in the Strand. Before that he cooked at Monsieur Max in Twickenham. He is, in short, a chef with pedigree, a track record and style. So what on earth could have induced him to chuck in the cheery certainties of a well-funded restaurant in central London for the less secure prospects of Islington? OK, Islington is Islington, and some of Islington is smart, but not all.

Well, it might have been the site. The dining room is one of the most delightful that I have eaten in for some time. It is small. It is bright. It is airy. It looks out across Liverpool Road to a park on the far side, and the bosky aspect adds to its sense of calm and unpretentious charm. Meunier's own paintings, while they may not challenge for the Turner Prize, reflect the style, life and colour of the restaurant.

A further quality also endears Meunier's enterprise to me. He has constructed his menu along French lines. That is to say, he has a range of dishes that he perms into a number of different menus and that are priced accordingly. The dishes are listed à la carte. Choose two and you'll get a bill for £19.50, choose three and it will climb to £23.50. Then there's "From The Garden", a five-course vegetarian menu, at £27, and a five-course Autumn Menu at £32. This provides the would-be gourmet with plenty of financial entry points and, while there are one or two supplements, you pretty much know what you are in for before you start hitting the wine list.

So Tucker was in for £27 for his ramble through the garden, while I took the three courses at £23.50. It is a sad fact that most chefs are unregenerate carnivores. A vegetable does not excite their imagination as much as a piece of meat. This accounts for the distressing, depressing variations on a goat's cheese theme that run like a rash through the menus of the country's restaurants. Meunier has no such inhibitions. His menu consisted of cream of pumpkin with rosemary and beignet of wild mushroom; légumes à la Grecque; ragout of gnocchi and cherry tomatoes; cannelloni of ricotta, poêle of girolles with a thyme beurre blanc; and dark chocolate moelleux with a milk sorbet, or pineapple soufflé with coconut and rum sorbet.

Whichever way you look at it, that's a decent feed. Not all the dishes were equally successful. Tucker expressed disappointment with the légumes à la Grecque, and pointed to a dependence on pasta and wild mushrooms. Not that he seemed to have much against them at the time. The cream of pumpkin with its little puff of mushrooms was outstanding. The cannelloni were in the same class - a light, essentially Italian dish that benefited from the indulgent sophistication of French saucing.

I represented the carnivorous tendency with ravioli of snails in chablis, poached garlic and red wine jus; pot-roast fillet of Iken Valley venison with ravioli of hare, glazed apple and chestnuts with sauce grand veneur; and a fig tart with lemon thyme ice cream and tuile aux épices. And they did me just fine. As a meal it was the apotheosis of autumn - soft, warm flavours; fine-grained textures; fruity bits and nutty bits, and sweetness and spice.

But it was more than this. Morgan Meunier has a notable classical touch matched to a sense of restraint. Sauces are not over-reduced. Flavours are not hard-driven. The style is light. The dishes have space to breathe. It is food that gives pause for thought as well as pause for pleasure. The red-wine reduction with the snails was mild and profound at the same time. The opulent, mulchy hare inside its soft pasta was a delicious contrast to the tauter, denser venison, the apple and chestnuts delicate foils to the might of the sauce grand veneur. Perhaps this approach works better with the protein dishes, whose ample flavours are naturally more assertive, than with the more delicate vegetables. Nevertheless, class is evident in every dish.

Such cooking completely justifies the price: £50.50 for two. Indeed, it seems eminently reasonable to me. I have heard murmurs about the service, but we experienced none of that, although it was a quiet lunchtime in Liverpool Road that day.

I can't help hoping the best for Morgan M, not only because it is a restaurant of such transparent quality, but also because I want to have an excuse to see how the sheep and cows and hens are getting on.

· Open Wed-Fri & Sun, 12 noon-2.30pm; Tues-Sat, 7-10pm.
Menus: Lunch, £19.50 for two courses; lunch & dinner, £23.50 for three; From The Garden menu (vegetarian), £27 for five courses; seasonal menu, £32 for five courses. Wheelchair access (no WC).