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When Rosemarie glanced down at her main course of smoked haddock and branded it "a bit nouvelle cuisine", I knew straightaway what she meant - that there wasn't a lot of it. It is unfortunate that a term originally coined to describe a fresh and original approach to cooking - the antidote to all the cream and stodge of haute cuisine -has come to mean something quite different: measly portions of food prettily arranged on big plates.

The haddock, it seemed to Rosemarie - and indeed to me - was in the quantity you might expect to be served as a starter. This may suit some as a main; indeed, it rather suited my companion, who possesses a bird-like appetite (true, that bird is sometimes a condor). Others, however, might be disappointed - a point we made to chef Matthew Tomkinson after our dinner at The Goose, in Britwell Salome.

Matthew has been in charge of the kitchen here since January, with a mission to regain the Michelin star achieved under the excellent Michael North (who is now plying his trade at the Nut Tree in Murcott). It says something for his concern to keep customers happy that he thanked us for the criticism and vowed to boost portion size for the haddock in the future.

By contrast, I advised, it might be no bad thing to cut out one of the three braised pigs' cheeks that came with grilled fillet of turbot as my main course, making the dish slightly biased in favour of the meat. This, too, was taken in good part.

The desire to please, and constantly to improve what is offered, is the hallmark of a good chef. And Matthew is certainly that. Two years ago, during his days at Ockenden Manor, in Sussex, he was the winner of the Roux Scholarship, the most prestigious honour that can be gained by a young chef in the UK. One of the prizes - as we learned during our post-prandial chat - was a three-month stint studying at the feet of Michel Guérard at his three Michelin-starred les Prés d'Eugenie in South West France. M. Guérard is, of course, one of the founding fathers of nouvelle cuisine. Well, well!

But don't let me give the impression that The Goose's menu is all French fiddle-faddle; with its emphasis on fresh local ingredients, it offers plenty to tempt lovers of the traditional.

Those aforementioned pigs' cheeks, for example - which are braised in a stock containing chicken, fish and red wine - come from a farm just up the road which sends them along 'on the head'. At certain times Matthew's kitchen must bear a passing resemblance to the Macbeths' dining table as I saw it depicted at Stratford on Tuesday. The horseradish velouté, however, which provides a subtle link between the turbot and the meat, contains a slug of ultra-Gallic Noilly Prat in addition to garlic and fresh rosemary.

Pork from Suffolk, lamb from Cornwall, fish from Brixham in Devon - ingredients sourced from the best British suppliers dominate the menu.

Except on Friday and Saturday nights, there is a good-value table d'hote, costing £15 for two courses, £19 for three. Rosemarie chose from this, and began with a firm favourite for traditionalists, lamb sweetbreads. These tender morsels were fried in a crisp coating of breadcrumbs and served with a properly made tartare sauce (lots of capers!) and pea shoots which (unusually in my experience) actually tasted of young fresh peas. The undyed smoked haddock that followed came with mashed potato, broccoli, grain mustard sauce and a poached egg. This last had its provenance advertised as a "Britwell Salome egg". What was the name of the hen? I wondered.

For pudding, she switched from the set menu, which offered a natural yoghurt pannacotta with pineapple and a pistachio crème brûlée. She wanted chocolate, and found this on the carte in the form of a warm and gooey chocolate tart (excellent pastry) served with toasted almonds and orange cream.

I went without pudding, reckoning that I had done enough dietary damage with the crispy oyster beignets (fritters', as we Brits used to call them) that came with my boudin of red mullet. This brought two slices of a lightly poached fish 'sausage' that had been fashioned around a filling of shredded savoy cabbage and more oysters.

Good intentions went out of the window, however, when my decaffeinated espresso arrived with elegant petit fours: a rich chocolate filled with preserved cherries and nuts, a raspberry jelly, a pink grapefruit macaroon and an almond tuille. They had been made on the premises, like everything else at the Goose. This includes the bread, the deliciousness of which (the fennel variety in particular) had let me to earlier dietary indiscretions.

In all a fine evening - a tribute to Matthew, the cheery waiting staff and the good judgment of proprietor Lisa Inglis (who also owns Hammersmith's highly rated Brackenbury).

11:15am Thursday 19th April 2007

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