The Peat Inn, near St Andrews, Fife (01334 840 206). Lunch for two: £75-£110. Dinner for two: £140

The Peat Inn is nothing new. It’s so not new, the whole village carries its name. That’s because the inn was here, amid the rolling pastures of Fife, from the mid-1700s, long before anybody thought to live around it. But it’s also another kind of not new. In 1972 a chef called David Wilson came to cook here, bringing good taste, technique and an interest in the area’s produce, when these things were less the minimum qualifying standard they are now than an eccentricity. In the mid-80s he won Scotland’s first Michelin star, at a time when they were one of the few ways of keeping score. The Peat Inn has form.

Wilson sold up in 2005 to Geoffrey Smeddle, another classically trained chef with time at the Orrery and Café Royal in London, who had then run the Conran group’s first restaurant in Glasgow. (He’s also a food columnist for the Sunday Herald with a fine turn of phrase). Early this year, the Peat Inn closed for a refurb. It has emerged bespoke and trim and glossy. There is caramel-coloured blonde-wood panelling of a modernist cut, and creamy tweed-patterned upholstery. Mostly there is some very fine, unforced and, in places, exceptionally witty cookery. The Peat Inn still has form.

God, but it’s civilised. It’s a room in which life feels good and unrushed. But then it comes with the territory, literally. If you’re looking for the Scotland of rough edges and hard-furrowed brows this bit of the country between the Firth of Forth and the Tay, focussed on St Andrews, is not quite the place to come. When looking for somewhere to eat on this trip it became clear to me that most of the action really was here on the south side of the Tay.

It is gentle and tidy and just a little bit manicured, and in places not short of cash. In the evenings, for example, starters here at the Peat Inn are in the mid- to high teens with mains well into the twenties. At lunchtime, however, on slightly less elaborate dishes, they are close to half that. There’s also a three-course lunch menu at just £19. On a Friday, it is full of elders of the tribe who know a good thing when they see it and have the time to take advantage of such possibilities. The room is alive with sunlight and chatter, laughter and sigh.

Smeddle is big on technique and precision without sacrificing flavour. He’s also determined not to scare anyone. To kick off, we are given a bowl of baby-pink ham hock under a bubble of mushroom mousse. A couple of years ago the latter would have been described as a foam, because that’s exactly what it is: a rich, mouth-coating mushroom sauce that has been extruded from the business end of a nitrous gun. But this is not the crowd for foams, so mousse it must be and very lovely it is, too.

The restaurant may feel at times like a redoubt against the elements outside, but his ingredients are an expression of that landscape at this time of year. A silky cauliflower soup is studded with sweet, crumbly chestnuts and, more importantly, pieces of hare – the shameless exhibitionist of the game world. There are tangles of braised shoulder and slices of loin with that deep, gutsy kick that only this animal can be depended upon to deliver. By contrast, a tartare of sea bream is all briskness and sea, an oyster mousse – another chance for the nitrous gun to shine – sending it all merrily on its way.

Main courses are thoroughly butch. There is a glorious piece of darkly glazed veal, described as a “slow-braised daube” which has been long-cooked to unctuous. It falls apart with just a tickle of the fork, like it senses its work is done. Alongside are ribbons of salsify dressed with hard cheese and egg yolk and crisped fragments of bacon, allowing the word “carbonara” to be attached. I laugh at my plate. Or with it. Roast breast and confit leg of mallard, with root vegetables and puy lentils, is that perfect combination of good taste and crowd pleaser.

At the end there is a perky lemon posset with an orange macaroon, and a blousy tumescence of banana and passion fruit soufflé with a chocolate and rum sauce. This is one of those sweet, childlike moments, made distinctly adult, with lots of brisk acidity. And then the chocolate sauce is poured in and it becomes something altogether more intense, serious and grown up. It is both duck-feather light and a bruiser of a soufflé. It demands a few seconds’ silence and a little attention. It is a classy end to an exceptionally classy meal.

Later that evening, after a trip to the theatre in Dundee, I found myself in the brasserie of the city’s Malmaison hotel. If we’re to talk about an improvement in food culture, then it’s actually less about having a good time on planned trips than striking gold on the accidental ones. So let me put on the record that the ribeye and the sirloin steaks at the Dundee Malmaison were terrific pieces of animal, brilliantly cooked, with a pronounced char and served with a very fine béarnaise and chips. When the Malmaison chain first opened years ago they were a blessed relief from awful, characterless inner-city hotels. It’s reassuring to see they can still do the thing.

They also have a smart wine list which should serve as a model for many others in the mid-market. There are 40 or so well-chosen wines, banded at price point – £20, £22, £25, £30 and £35 – with almost all of them available by small and large glass and 500ml, as well as the full bottle. Shockingly, it almost reads as if somebody had thought carefully about the wine offering.

I took advantage of it rather enthusiastically. And so, the next morning, in search of carbs I found my way to the Palais Tea Room, a knowingly retro cafe round the corner on Union Street, with its heart in the 1950s and its tongue in its cheek. Tables are covered with laminated pages of comics in celebration of Dundee’s great DC Thomson, publishers of the Beano. More importantly, they have cake. They have cake like Scotland has weather: big multi-layered ones, beautifully displayed under glass. Try the sticky toffee pudding cake, warmed through and with a glug of cream. Then go for a good long walk.

Jay’s news bites

■ The £19 lunch menu at the Peat Inn is hard to beat, but Fischer’s at Baslow Hall, Derbyshire, is not far behind with three courses at £20.15. Currently it features hay-baked partridge, belly and fillet of Derbyshire pork and a blackberry parfait. The quality of cooking is always assured, but the menu is only available until 4 December (fischers-baslowhall.co.uk).

■ Think London property rental prices are too high? You ain’t heard nothing. The Lanesborough Hotel at Hyde Park Corner has just reopened with what, according to The Caterer Magazine, is the most expensive suite in the capital. The Royal Suite has seven bedrooms and comes with a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. The price: £26,750 a night. Oh, and you have to book at least three nights (lanesborough.com).

■ Northcote Manor in Lancashire has announced the line-up for Obsession, the series of dinners cooked by invited chefs, which runs from 22 January to 7 February. It includes chefs from Taiwan, Japan, Poland and Mexico (northcote.com).

Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk
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• This article was amended on 15 November 2015 to correct the web address for Northcote Manor.