AMONG the mixed blessings of the vogue for kitchens visible to their customers is that they can not only see the chef ever cheerfully at work but, just possibly, fancy the checked pants off him, as well. Hot stuff, as it were.

Thus has the Scarlet Pimpernel of North-East gastronomy not just been tracked and talent spotted but last month married the lady, a head teacher in Hartlepool. She was only there for his moules mariniere.

Seek and ye shall find, as Baroness Orczy would probably have said.

Didier de Ville - as the Pimpernel more properly is known - has been a bit more settled of late. His short term record was a day and a half at a restaurant in Guisborough. Now, however, he has left Hartlepool and taken the food franchise at the Black Horse in Kirkby Fleetham, a small village off the A1 north of Leeming Bar.

The landlord, also familiar, is the heroically hirsute Dave Morrison, for more than 40 years an able wicket keeper in North-East club cricket - mainly with Darlington RA - and with appealing pictures on the bar wall to show him at his caught behind best.

We went with Carl Les, an old friend who is now something of a North Yorkshire potentate and who - boys and their toys - carried a state-of-the-art contraption that wasn't just mobile phone but had a QWERTY keyboard, a computer function and could probably pick up Hilversium as well.

"It looks like a pencil case," said The Boss, sharply.

"No it doesn't," said Carl, cut to the quick.

The pub remains villagey, informal - as well it might in the irrepressible Mr Morrison's safe hands - with six well kept real ales, the one day cricket on television and music on the machine.

We gave him certain advice about the music machine, though it might be anatomically impossible to follow it.

The only other problem is the low concrete beam in the bar, from which we still bear the impression from a visit several years ago. Those either a) over six feet tall or b) forgetful, are advised to wear one of those helmets especially favoured by cricket's tail end Charlies.

We'd planned to eat by the open fire had not the dart board been two feet from the table and someone fancied his arm. Since staying seemed suicidal, we adjourned to the rather less cosy restaurant.

Though the Pimpernel was out of sight, his cooking speaks unmistakably for itself. None does French "paysent" - peasant - food with the same flair or the same flavour; none serves more generous portions. They are elusive qualities.

There's a set menu - perhaps mussels and chips with mayonnaise, £5.50; gammon with fresh roasted pineapple £6.50 - a highly flirtatious blackboard and, a real bargain, a choice that offers one course for £5.35, two for £7.15 and three for £9.60.

We contemplated the £9.60 special. Carl, man of the people - though the elections may still be a year or two away - insisted on travelling economy class instead.

He had the black pudding with bacon and apple chutney - Carl almost has a degree in black pudding and thought it very good - followed by ham hock with braised cabbage and a bacon and grain mustard sauce.

There are two difficulties with ham hock, the first that you can't get a small one and the second that it's a reminder of the rigours of O-level Latin - remember Hic-haec-hoc? - and of Jennings and Darbishire.

Jennings, it may be recalled, tried to remember his declensions by imitating (with his vivid imagination) the rear gunner of a Spitfire.

Hic-haec-hoc - a Messerschmitt falls, blazing, from the sky - hunc-haec-hoc, a second bandit bites the dust.

Mr Wilkins wasn't amused. He never was.

Carl thought the hock admirably suited its purpose, paused over his creme brulee - OK, he mused - and then revised his opinion upwards.

Other main courses from the fixed price menu - just £9.60 the lot, remember - included smoked haddock with wilted greens, a soft poached egg and saffron flavoured hollandaise sauce or vegetarian risotto with Wensleydale cheese, asparagus, squash, cherry tomatoes and something no longer legible.

The Boss, as usual, was swimming with the tide - a main course of monkfish with mussels and creme fraiche - but considered the creme caramel particularly to be the creme de la creme.

We began with a chicken ballotine - a sort of roulade - of which any chef in the Republic would have been proud. Carl thought that ballotine was made in net stockings; his mind may have been elsewhere. The lamb shank (£7.50) was almost conglomerate in its vastness - Barclays shank, perhaps - the beetroot and other bits of things typical of the guy's sense of adventure. The vegetables with all dishes were good to excellent. Food and coffee for three, £48.

Finally the Pimpernel appeared. Carl thought him to resemble Eugene McCoy, the celebrated chef/patron at the Cleveland Tontine, though in truth there is more of a Breton Billy Connolly about him.

Didier said he thought he was here to stay. More reasons to stop at Morrison's.

l The Bay Horse, Kirkby Fleetham, North Yorkshire (01609) 748008. Open for meals Tuesday-Saturday from 5.30pm and Sunday lunch. Adapted for the disabled.

A FEW miles down the road from the paysent quarter, much rejoicing at the Fox and Hounds in Carthorpe, near Bedale, where Helen Fitzgerald - daughter of Howard and Bernie Fitzgerald, owners for the past 21 years - last week won the Publican Newspaper award for dessert menu of the year.

Helen's worked in the kitchen since she was 18. "She's so good we've had to move out, it's usually the other way round," says Howard.

The 2004 Good Pub Guide reckons it "the sort of consistently reliable pub to which customers return on a regular basis."

Proof of the pudding, we shall go back shortly, too.

ANOTHER success story: the Endeavour restaurant at Staithes, near Whitby - "a strong point is that it offers less frequently encountered fish" says the 2003 Good Food Guide - has won one of 20 citations in the 2004 "Restaurant Remys" promoted by Remy Martin and Hardens UK Restaurant Guide. It's now owned by Brian Kay and Charlotte Willoughby. "A truly distinctive dining experience," said the judges.

IRISH eyed, there's now an O'Brien's sandwich bar in Darlington town centre - one of over 200 franchised outlets worldwide, 120 in the UK, since the first appeared in Dublin in 1988.

We looked in at 9.30am: Bacon and soft cheese bagel (a meeting of cultures) for her, breakfast toastie over here.

It should have had bacon, sausage, tomato and Ballymaloe relish, only there wasn't any relish. Nor could the assistant work the toaster. It was getting a bit like Failte Towers. Good, substantial sandwiches, though, pleasant coffee, browsing newspapers including that morning's Echo. Good luck to you, sir.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what copper nitrate was.

Overtime for policemen.

Published: 18/11/2003