Samuel Johnsone has been on my mind of late. His views on cucumber and mine coincide: 'a cucumber should be well sliced and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.' And when it comes to oats, that staple of biscuits that are reputedly good for you or worse, porridge, his defintion is this: 'a grain eaten by horses in England and by men in Scotland'. We evidently also share a view on 'oat cuisine'. As a lexicographer - the work for which he is justly famous - he defines the operative of that occupation as 'a harmless drudge', much as I view the task of reviewing mediocre restaurants.

But then that's the difference between lexicography and restaurant reviewing; whereas defining language has few ups and downs, eating out has many, from the bad to the sublime. This week it was very definitely an up. I was in London to eat in Lindsay House, the restaurant made famous by Ireland's expatriate chef, Richard Corrigan. I've met Richard a few times over the years, most recently when he was guest critic on 'The Restaurant'. He's a big man, big in personality and big in talent, whose restaurant is very much a reflexion of the man. The menu, the ambience, the friendly service in Lindasy House are exactly tailored to his strongly held opinions on what eating out is actually about. For Richard, it's a simple equation - it's farm to fork, with as little between the two as possible.

Lindsay House is just off Dean Street, right in the heart of Soho. It's a four storey brick built house and the dining rooms are on three floors. I found myself at a table with two Irish expat financiers with high-powered jobs, who I'll call John and Richard, and the man himself, Richard Corrigan. It was unusual to have Richard in the dining room, normally he's behind the scenes in the kitchen imposing himself on the kitchen staff. But for the first time in five years he was sitting with us as a customer, keeping faith with his sous chef Eoin Corcoran, who was cooking for us.

The menu reads wonderfully, or more precisely the three of them do. There's the dinner menu at £48, the tasting menu and the garden menu, both priced at £59. I ate off the dinner menu, the six courses of the other two menus looking a little daunting. I was taken by the look of two of the starters; the hand-rolled macaroni with fresh crab and the crubeens. Richard's solution was 'have the macaroni and we'll order the crubeens for the middle of the table.' A good solution, I thought.

The main courses were equally interesting, but the braised pig's cheek with pork belly looked irresistable, so I had that. Thankfully Richard ordered the caramelised sweetbreads, which I would also have happily ordered, so I was able to get a taste of his. What you do notice as you look down the menu is how exact the descriptions are when it comes to the provenance of the food. There's the poultry, which comes from Reg Johnstone; the beef which comes from West Cork; the lamb which comes from North Wales and the wild greens which are foraged in the west country. Lindsay House doesn't just talk about the importance of provenance, it actually puts it into practice.

When it came to the wines we really struck it lucky. Richard had just got the first samples of a batch of wines from the Aosta Valley in Italy's North West. In this incredidibly steep-sided valley which runs right up to Mont Blanc from Aosta, vines are trained onto the huge boulders which litter the valley floor, and these boulders act as storage heaters during the night after they've been warmed by the day's sun. In this inhospitable climate some wonderful wines are made by Massimo Bellocchio at Les Cretes and we tasted his Petite Arvine white and his award winning red Torrette 2003. Another excellent white that we tasted from this francophone part of Italy was a Blanc de Morgex, made by Gianluca Telloli.

The wines went wonderfully with the food and Richard visibly relaxed as the plates came from the kitchen as perfectly as he expected. We started with a plate of amuse bouches before moving on to the starters. My macaroni with crab was delightfully light and the crubeens - served delicately with the all bones removed - were excellent, although I'll admit to a preference of eating crubeens 'hands on', sucking the meat off the bones.

I thoroughly enjoyed my main course of pigs' cheeks which came with a slice of pork belly, whose crispy crunchiness was a good counterpoint to the softness of the braised cheeks. Although I was well pleased with this dish, Richard had ordered the caramelised veal sweetbreads with cauliflower beignets for himself and he kindly gave me a taste. Should I ever be back in Lindsay House, that's what I'll be ordering the next time. What makes sweetbreads such a treat is the crisp outside and the melt-in-the-mouth inside and this dish was perfectly executed. The cauliflower beignets, little florets deep-fried, were probably the tastiest bits of cauliflower I've ever eaten.

We finished up with good espressos and talked food and cooking into the early hours. I can't think of any more enjoyable way to spend an evening than with good food and good company. My conclusion? Lindsay House is a very fine restaurant.