Meals were often eaten in silence (a tradition upheld by many couples in restaurants today), so the monks invented a sign language to communicate essentials.

It ran to a hundred different gestures. Rubbing your nose with your right hand meant "Pass the mustard". Waggling your hand sideways like a fish's tail meant "I'd like some fish, please". Tapping your shoulder and forehead quickly and stabbing the air with your forefinger meant "Copper Calypso is 50-to-1 in the 3.25 at Chepstow". What, I wonder, would the semaphoring monks have made of the unalluringly named "Plate of Pig", an all-porker dish on the menu at Artisan? Suggestions, please, for "Pass the trotters, would you?" The waiter assured us, incidentally, that the Plate is very popular, but it still smacks of animal autopsy to me.

The much-acclaimed Artisan, in Sheffield's solidly suburban Crosspool district, has had almost as many reincarnations as the Dalai Lama. Richard Smith – a "big fish" in South Yorkshire restaurant-land, as our taxi-driver remarked – launched it a dozen years ago as the logically named Smiths of Sheffield.

It apparently had a "bedouin-tent look", but after five years, Smith changed tack and transformed it into Thyme, a minimalist shrine to "city chic". Another five years and he revamped it again as Artisan, which is bistro-like and business-like, with a fish restaurant, Catch, upstairs.

Artisan has won a Bib Gourmand award from the Michelin men. While not quite a star-rating, this implies good, affordable food, but begs the question of exactly what "affordable" is.

Would it mean the same to the restaurant's regulars as, say, to the surviving handful of Sheffield artisans who presumably inspired its name?

As they bang and clatter away – perhaps in a heritage Cutlery Colony hidden from the city's business parks and "cultural quarter" – they might feel that a £25 three-course set-menu, as here, isn't actually an astonishing bargain. Foodies would doubtless swoon at such philistine penny-pinching, but, as we handed over just under £72 at the end of our meal, we did wonder whether we'd had our money's worth. It depends what you expect of a meal, of course. If it's good food, well, this was fine up to a point. If it's atmosphere, we might have been better off in a quiet station buffet.

Artisan gets off to a discouraging start before you even step inside. Sitting oddly in Crosspool's shopping centre, next door to a supermarket, it looks plain and workaday. Strip away the colourful awnings and tables, which bring a hopeful hint of Montmartre, and you can just about imagine the old Co-op store it used to be. The bungalows across the road add a homely touch.

Inside, though, everything is smart to a fault. A small bar with a modest deli section, leather sofas and a chilly draught leads through to the two-part dining room. More American than French, it has dark wood furniture, white and crimson walls, plum-coloured banquettes and curious tilted mirrors that suggest a hairdressing salon.

Its formality is echoed by the staff, who are professional and pleasant enough but as crisp as the crackling on a Plate of Pig, as though we're just being processed along the production line. Perhaps it's not smart to smile. It makes for a slick, impersonal evening, which is exactly what bistros aren't supposed to offer.

The menu seems to have been simplified from Artisan's early days, when, as another reviewer remarked, you needed a PhD to get to grips with its labyrinthine complexities. Now there's either the set menu, which I go for, or the à la carte, which does interesting-sounding things in a hearty way (pigeon pie with beetroot; lamb in herb mustard crust) and has a decent veggie choice.

After a small plate of humous and olives, served (eventually) with excellent granary and garlic-and-rosemary breads, the waitress arrives with our starters. "Salmon?" she demands, brisk and offhand, and puts down our plates without another word. It's a generous serving of salmon, soy-cured and with an agreeable edge thanks to a touch of lime. A rich Tuscan bean soup with white bean ravioli (£6) is more a tomato-based sauce than a soup, but none the worse for that.

Both mains disappoint. A crispy sea bass fillet has well-judged accompaniments – black olive mash, red pepper purée, courgettes and anchovies – but, for all its initial crispness, a small part of it is seriously undercooked. I point this out to the waitress as she clears the plates, and she says she'll mention it to the chef. That's the last we hear about it. The gnocchi with butternut squash (£12) looks and tastes like nursery food: creamy, over-sweet, and on the stodgy side. Two-thirds of it remain uneaten, but the waitress doesn't comment. A green salad in a bowl the size of a coffee cup costs £3. If I ever set up a restaurant, I'm going to call it Fools and their Money.

The saving grace is the dessert – light, moist sticky-toffee parkin, served with strips of Wakefield rhubarb and Pontefractish liquorice ice cream. A little celebration of Yorkshire to bring us back down to earth. And the cutlery, commendably, is by David Mellor, a Sheffield lad who knows a thing or two about real artisans.

Outside, I hail a taxi and a passing monk hands me a pepper-pot.

Artisan, 32-34 Sandygate Road, Crosspool, Sheffield S10 5RY,
0114 266 6096. www.artisanofsheffield.com.
Open daily noon-2.30pm, 6-10pm.