The Peat Inn, Fife

For 30 years, David and Patricia Wilson have combined impeccably sourced Scottish produce with French cooking at The Peat Inn in Fife. So has the ground-breaking restaurant stood the test of time? Tracey MacLeod thinks so

Back in 1972, when Gordon Ramsay was dreaming of a career in football and Jamie Oliver wasn't even born, David and Patricia Wilson moved from Huntingdon to an easterly corner of Scotland to open their own pub/restaurant. The Peat Inn was a squat, run-down coaching inn at the crossroads of a village, also called Peat Inn, near St Andrews.

The Wilsons reopened it as a pub with food, but gradually wound down the pub side, as David Wilson's French-inspired cooking started getting the place noticed. In 1985, with David in the kitchen and Patricia front of house, The Peat Inn was awarded a Michelin star, the first in Scotland.

It may no longer have its star, but The Peat Inn is still a local legend, and David Wilson the undisputed gastronomic ruler of the Kingdom of Fife. His championing of local, seasonal produce was ahead of its time, as was his parallel career as a celebrity chef – he appeared as a regular judge on the BBC's Masterchef, assisting Loyd Grossman in his meditations and cogitations (before the latter became the Torquemada of the cook-in sauce).

Grossman's face beams at you, in an appetite-suppressing kind of way, from one of the many photos that hang in The Peat Inn's lounge area, alongside a display of certificates ("Stilton Restaurant of the Year 1990") that speak of former glories. But the room itself, after a recent revamp, has a pleasantly contemporary feel, mixing well-chosen antiques with modern Designers Guild-style fabrics.

There's always a touch of the doctors' waiting room about the country restaurant lounge, but this one seems less formal than most, even though, on a Saturday night, most of our fellow diners were dressed up to the nines. Preposterously so, in the case of a party of chinless wonders in tartan trews and bow ties who were honking about the day's pigeon shooting while hogging the fire. (A stag party, we later learned; presumably of a kind that brings its own stag.) With main courses priced from £16 to £21, The Peat Inn is a special occasion kind of place.

Pricing might be at London levels, but equally many of the dishes on offer would sit happily on a smart metropolitan menu. Herb salad with hot smoked salmon and a lobster and citrus sauce, medallions of venison saddle on wild mushroom cake, whole lobster on tagliatelle with a vegetable and herb infusion; this is the kind of fresh, modern cooking that indicates The Peat Inn's kitchen isn't resting on its laurels. Game, salmon, lobster and scallops predominate, and though the menu doesn't make a big deal about it, most of the ingredients are sourced locally – they've even recruited a neighbourhood truffle hunter.

Our meal got off to a wonderful start with the sliver of onion quiche, quivering fresh from the oven, which accompanied our aperitifs. Then, at the table, good bread, and a ramekin of cod mornay, fragrant with nutmeg. The dishes that followed showed the kind of confidence and consistency that can only be achieved by a first-class kitchen with a well-established repertoire.

Maybe The Peat Inn fish soup was a bit heavy on the cream. But the peppery lobster risotto which accompanied a crisply pan-fried slice of halibut, the darkly savoury fricassee of Jerusalem artichokes and chanterelles underpinning medallions of grilled monkfish, and the individual character of the lamb, pork belly and duck leg in a plainly served cassoulet – these were items to remember.

Initial irritation at being asked to choose our desserts before our meal had even begun (how are you meant to know at that stage whether you'll require a palate-cleaning delicacy or a rib-sticking pud?) gave way to gratitude when our half-forgotten order arrived; particularly good was a rich chocolate tart, dark and slippery as sin. Then it was back to the lounge for nasty coffee, and petit-fours which never appeared, but were still charged for – the only slip-ups in an otherwise smooth operation.

The bill just topped £100 ("You could buy a two-bedroomed flat in Glenrothes for that!" spluttered my dining companion Harry, a local boy) and was handed over in the kind of tooled leather binder in which people once kept their copies of Radio Times. But in general, The Peat Inn steers clear of the over-posh, gussied-up touches that can make fine-dining in the countryside an ordeal. Service is confident and conversational, and we were impressed, when a bottle we chose from the reasonably priced wine list proved unavailable, to be recommended a cheaper one.

Harry, who has been fantasising about eating at The Peat Inn since he was a lad, was satisfied, but not thrilled, by his long-awaited visit. "It's very good, but not great. 25 years ago, it was probably the best restaurant in Scotland, but the rest of Britain has caught up with it." I wasn't so sure. I didn't visit in the mid-Eighties, when The Peat Inn – and indeed Harry – were in their prime. But The Peat Inn, at least, still seems to be holding up pretty well against the competition. E

The Peat Inn, Peat Inn, Fife (01334 840 206)