Buon Apps, Wharfebank Business Centre, Ilkley Rd, Otley, West Yorkshire (01943 468458). Meal for two, including wine and service, £80

I published my first restaurant review 22 years ago, and I was literally the one responsible for publishing it, being the editor of the student newspaper in which it appeared. Re-reading it now, I can't quite imagine that anybody else would have considered this to be velvet prose worth sacrificing a tree for. The review was of an Italian in Leeds called Manfred's and it included some rapier-sharp observations. A chicken breast stuffed with spinach was "thrillingly different"; an Italian trifle had "to be seen to be believed". It was, I concluded, very hard to fault Manfred's, "there being few to compare with it in Leeds". We drank a bottle of Soave and ran up a bill for £36 which we didn't pay. This, I graciously accepted, "was not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, until you taste the food, which is worth it". See: I've been apologising for the cost of my dinner for decades.

I had not thought of Manfred's for years, until I was asked recently, by a Yorkshire-based journalist, about my first review. Casually Googling away, I found Manfred. Now closing on 70, he is still at it, cooking the same sort of Italian food, only a few miles outside Leeds, near Otley. In a world dizzy with forward motion, I find that reassuring. I like the idea of people continuing to do the thing they have long done well. And so it just had to be done.

Buon Apps, short for Buon Appetito, sits in a business centre, but one which occupies a handsome space of York stone carved out of old mill buildings, not far from the rush of the river, where branches heavy with spring leaf hang low over the water. As a man who loves a strong narrative, I wish I could now report that hidden away here is something special, serving exquisite Italian food. It's not that, and I can't pretend otherwise. Nothing was thrillingly different. Nothing needed to be seen to be believed. The menu is clearly designed to keep the revenue stream pumping. There are sandwiches, burgers and a whole bunch of things which probably stumbled on to the menu by accident long ago and forgot to leave. But there are also some thoroughly pleasing, very solidly prepared dishes.

We had a very nice lunch. A fine red-wine risotto, the right shade of claret, came with strands of caramelised radicchio, the light bitterness of which had lots to say to the slippery, Parmesan-enriched rice. The salami and smoked hams in a plate of antipasto might have been a little chillier than is ideal, but the ingredients were good. There was lightness to the pasta in plump ravioli of lobster with ricotta, and while there was too much of it, the cream and saffron sauce did its job.

Two decades ago at Manfred's I ordered the devilled chicken, which I remember being a dark and sticky hands-on affair. Here, in an act of nostalgia, I ordered the chicken diavola, which was rather less devilish but satisfying for all that, a fair enough piece of chicken baked in a mildly piquant tomato sauce. There was crisp, oily bread that approximated focaccia, good olives, and at the end a tiramisu that did honour to the name while clogging the arteries. The mostly Italian wine list is a particular joy, being packed with the sort of Italian names which elsewhere cost north of £25 and here were being flogged for £18 a bottle.

Mostly, there was just the gentle thrum of a restaurant which has found a way to make things stack up, and an experienced chef to help them do it. What there wasn't was Manfred himself. Apparently some Icelandic volcano had erupted, trapping him on holiday in Europe. No matter. Buon Apps carried on doing its thing regardless. And the bill? Not quite three times what I didn't pay in 1988. No, not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. Until you taste the food, which is worth it.

Thanks, Manfred. Good to make your acquaintance again.