The 16th century Punch Bowl, a whitewashed, timberframe construction set in a conservation village near Boroughbridge, had made its debut under new owners five days before we went
for lunch.

So it's pleasing to report that the scene was of transparent normality. There was the occasional pouting air kiss, cheek-peck and hug to be seen, but that was just the local farmers greeting each other. There were certainly no undue expressions of luvviedom from the adjoining table of Geordies or from the South Yorkshire contingent across the way.

Waitress: "Is everything all right, sir?"

Diner: "Champion, luv."

Nor is this a place to dress up or be wary of stifling convention. The sage and cream warren – five dining spaces radiating from a central bar – is classy, country-cool and pleasingly laid-back. Morrissey, who co-owns this rejuvenated inn with chef Richard Fox, mooches genially in hipster jeans while Fox, intense of manner, hair like a stork's nest, reinforces the impression of sociability.

Shouldn't he be in the kitchen? Not on this showing. It seemed to be doing perfectly well without him. Consider the small but immaculately formed starter of smoked eel and belly pork with Hollandaise. Simple idea, excellent ingredients, bright flavours, unfussy presentation, nine out of ten.

Besides, the deficiency in many food pubs these days is not principally of cooks but of strong front-of-house personalities to set the tempo and stir the social mix. So if Morrissey sees this as a long-term investment and doesn't tire of being gazed at in rural Yorkshire – he has a hotel in Wales and a private club in London – it could be great fun.

To an extent, it already is. Some of the female staff are undoubtedly Sloanish – the look, the drawl, the walk, the jeans – but there's nothing remotely aloof about them and they go about their task with engaging grace and wit.

The Morrissey-Fox philosophy of serving "great British food using ingredients from the finest artisan local producers" is hardly original but, providing it can be sustained, it's admirable enough.

On this particular Sunday lunchtime, it translated into a short menu of three starters, four mains and four puddings. One village pub I know has two chefs, a menu of 36 items and an empty restaurant. What they are chalking
up on the blackboard, to satisfy a supposed demand for variety, is their own suicide note. I like, in every sense, the brevity of the Punch Bowl menu. Even for dinner it is limited to six starters, six mains (among them spring lamb casserole with ale) and five puddings. In other words, ingredients for the most part, are left to speak for themselves.

Faites simple, said Escoffier. Keep it simple, urges Jamie Oliver. Keep it effing simple, bawls Ramsay. And yet, despite such sound advice, chefs still love to overstrive and overcomplicate. Not here. Consider the terrine of duck confit, white beans and carrot where rich, soft shards of duck meat are separated by a mosaic of bean and carrot. It looks lovely; tastes clean and focused. A dressing would
help the side salad but even that
is of exemplary freshness. All British, though, these intense little leaves?
I wonder.

Main courses this day were roast sirloin of beef; slow roast shoulder of pork; whole roast poussin with brioche bread sauce; and salmon fillet with cauliflower and parsnip purée, sauce vierge.

The beef, said the young woman who took our order – tall, drawly, winning smile – would be medium rare. But rare indeed is it to find blood-juiced beef in a British pub and this was heading towards medium. Fine meat, though, excellent gravy with none of your "jus" nonsense, and a handsome Yorkshire pudding, rising tall and proud like a Martello tower. Local salmon? That would be a nice ideal. All the same, it's a neat dish,
if tending to over-sweetness in the combination of parsnip and cauliflower in the purée.

And who's the bright cook who conjures such life from the vegetables: sweet, minerally cabbage, nutty carrots, high-crunch roast potatoes? This is not knock-your-socks off cooking in that it relies
on high technique and luxury ingredients; the socks come off because there's truth and integrity to it.

Not quite everything harmonises. The chocolate walnut tart is a lovely composition, based once again on sound ingredients, but thought needs to be given to the final texture. The praline cream isn't quite up to the hefty filling
of chocolate and nuts.

The apricot and apple crisp, though, is an immediate pleaser. It's a crumble that's big on fruit and light on crumble and very fine it is, with a little pot of custard (no jus; no crème anglaise).

Three-course lunch is £17.50 (two courses for £14.95) which hardly constitutes robbery given the setting, the style and the Man Behaving Impeccably who is schmoozing his customers.

There's more. This is no banish-the-drinkers gastropub. Besides a bottled beer list of impressive reach and depth, the Punch bowl runs its own, on-site micro-brewery, source of a delicate, floral, hoppy bitter.

The wine list shows similar resource. Its most expensive bottle is not some stroke-inducing, Parker-hyped Old Worlder but an Aussie Shiraz at £69 made from venerable Syrah. There are a dozen or
so wines by the glass and the rest of the list tours the world with breezy attitude and eyes wide open.

That's the Punch bowl: new and already punching above its weight.

Ye Olde Punch Bowl, Marton-cum-Grafton, North Yorkshire, YO51 9QY. Phone: 01423 322519, enquiries@ morrisseyfox.co.uk. Open seven days lunch and dinner; bar snacks and "village Sunday breakfast with newspapers". Car park, music, accommodation planned.