I first encountered him about 15 years ago at the Rock Inn in the rural hamlet of Crane Moor, near Penistone, where he was gastro-pubbing pretty much before anyone else in the area. But hardly had the word got round about the freshly prepared food, sound technique and good wine, than off he buzzed to Sheffield. Soon afterwards, the Rock betrayed its name by becoming a private house. Brown started Carriages, an upscale restaurant at the smart end of Abbeydale Road, well placed for the moneyed crowd of Totley and Dore, though his name came to greater prominence with the opening of Slammers, a contemporary bistro on Ecclesall Road notable for shot glasses filled with seafood.

For a short time, it was probably the city's busiest, and certainly its buzziest, dining room and when the doors slammed unexpectedly on that venture, he returned to Carriages which begat Brown's which begat the Supper Club which he relinquished last year. And now he's in Barnsley at a restaurant that knew success in the 1990s as Peano's but had come off the boil in the past two years as Armstrong's.

Now it's son of Slammers and, unless Cary Brown does something wayward, it should do well. Several factors suggest so, not least the waiting staff.

It was an indisputably good idea to employ one of Yorkshire's loveliest restaurant managers. She looks to have stepped from the cover of a particularly discriminating fashion magazine and several of her team also seem to be past, present or future models. It's a wonder the butter doesn't melt as they carry it from the kitchen. Better still, they have fizz, humour and charm.

Where was I? Oh, yes, there are other encouraging signs, though I'm not sure anyone with 20/20 vision would account the decor chief among them. For some odd reason, the blinds are pulled down at the large windows in the dining room of this handsome Victorian Villa.

Perhaps it's to prevent drivers crashing into each other as they catch a glimpse of the restaurant manager and her stunning team – have I mentioned them yet? – but it makes a dark room that bit gloomier.

The colours are funky, going on pond-like: here a touch of funereal purple, there a dash of marine green. Here a naked torso – calm down, they're on the walls – there a hint of black.

Fortunately, the structural bones of the house are able to tolerate all this and those addicted to Victorian values can admire the stained glass window above the fine staircase, the solid joinery and the lofty ceilings.

The food, by contrast, is thoroughly modern. Brown, perhaps wisely, has concluded that Barnsley is ready for a menu that defies the conventional holy trinity of starter/main/pudding.

So the menu begins with "sharing platters for two/three" and goes on to "small plates/starters", salads, pizzas, pasta, fish, meat, sides and puddings.

There's a riot of choice in the four dozen menu dishes, which range from prawn cocktail martini and Thai duck pot noodle to veal escalope, grilled sea bass, and – no accounting for taste – pizza of rib-eye steak with horseradish crème fraiche and smoked apple wood cheese.

Too much choice? Too ambitious a menu? The thought surfaced as we sat for more than half an hour contemplating how much longer it might take the kitchen to feel moved to send out a first course of seafood slammers and a fried platter of salt-and-pepper squid, fish and chips and tempura mushrooms.

A couple of dozen other expectant diners were gazing at their immaculate but food-free tables, like members of an uncommonly patient sect waiting for the ritual to begin. I must have been looking particularly desolate because a staff member came over and asked sweetly if all was well.

It's amazing how well those three pouty words "Want My Dinner," work. The girl winged it to the kitchen, whispered something miraculous and seconds later a river of food was flowing to all of the tables.

The shot glasses of seafood that constitute the slammers are, in this town at least, a decorative novelty, though there's more to them than that. The contents included some terrific dressed crab, fine smoked salmon and a standard-issue prawn cocktail that was no less pleasing for that.

The "fried platter", however, turned out to be only half true. Plates yield their role to paper cones, supported in a revolving holder of the sort that Chinese restaurants use. Like a bag of chips, the cones are easier to tackle with the fingers: though the squid is a slippery handful. The quality of the frying (shatter-batter) and the fish (pearlescent cod) marks a kitchen that troubles over detail, always an encouraging sign. Main courses brought "crisp fried" monkfish with chilli jam, rocket and crème fraîche in which the fish was encased in tempura-like batter – perhaps Cary Brown has an early history as a chippie. Anyway, the story was of bright colours and bright flavours aided by the high-octane chillies.

Among the main meat courses, alongside slow-cooked shank of
lamb, grilled calf's liver and a fillet steak, is a burger. But, cue breathy voice, this is no ordinary burger, this is a "Limes burger with chips, salad and tomato chutney". Unlike the average fast-food version, the meat tastes of beef. It could be a shade pinker, but it's hard to think there's a better species for miles around.

The chips, by contrast, need more work: chiefly more time in the fryer.

There was a final blast of pleasure in the form of a brownie.

This must be the stickiest confection since Sticky the stick insect got stuck on his sticky bun. Dark, sweet and utterly beguiling, it is made the more sensuous by a drizzle of chocolate sauce.

A short utility wine list starts at £10.95 with a pleasant Grenache Blanc and has two reds, two whites and one rosé by the glass.

Sadly, there's no space to mention the poised waiting staff.

Perhaps next time.

Limes, 102, Dodworth Road, Barnsley, S70 6HL. 01226 733633. Open Tuesday to Saturday from 6pm. Car park. A la carte dinner for two with wine: from about £45 a head. First floor bar and toilets.