Just the place for a belly laugh

A countryside gastropub with a stroppy French chef? Sounds like an ideal setting for a comedy, but The White Hart Inn at Nayland is strictly for serious eaters

I first heard about the White Hart through a small newspaper story last summer: "Grumpy chef bans locals from pub for laughing," the headline ran. According to the report, the proprietor of a 15th-century village inn on the Suffolk/Essex border had got fed up with beery locals disturbing his diners with their laughter and merry chatter. He announced that he was barring drinkers, unless they also ate a meal in the restaurant. The locals were naturally furious, and stomped off en masse to Nayland's other pub, denouncing the owner and his customers as a "stuck-up lot".

It's not the kind of story that makes you want to rush to a place. What caught my eye, though, was the fact that the "grumpy chef" who owned the White Hart was named as Michel Roux, better known as the proprietor of Britain's only Michelin three-starred restaurant, the Waterside Inn at Bray. Shortly after the negative press appeared, he closed down the White Hart for refurbishment, and reopened it in August as an "inn with rooms", installing Waterside Inn graduate Neil Bishop as head chef. Weirdly, though, The White Hart plays down the Roux connection in its publicity material - the master's name is mentioned neither on the inn's brochure nor on its website.

Nayland is a gorgeous village in Constable country (or off the A12 between Colchester and Ipswich, if you're feeling more prosaic). Its narrow streets are flanked by ancient, half-timbered houses in pastel colours, and the high street is dominated by the whitewashed White Hart, whose huge painted sign swings magnificently over the front door. From the outside, it would be easy to mistake it for an ordinary pub. But as soon as you step inside, the ease-making attentiveness of the maitre d' and his all-French team makes it clear that this is somewhere rather special.

My mobile phone started shrieking in my bag as I was being escorted through the dining room to the bar; if you can get ejected for laughing, surely you can be thrown into the stocks for that. But no one batted an eyelid; in fact far from being "a stuck-up lot", the clientele seemed jolly and relaxed. Two middle-aged couples were scanning the menu over aperitifs. "Do I like mussels and clams?" one woman coquettishly enquired of her husband; "They aren't like oysters, are they?" Not the kind of line one would overhear in the Waterside Inn, I suspect.

In selecting my dinner guest, I felt I'd come up with the ideal companion for a venue where laughter and chatter are disapproved of, in the form of my recently ex-boyfriend David. Immediately prior to our break-up, David and I endured a week of murderously silent candlelit dinners in a romantic Caribbean hotel, during which we couldn't even bring ourselves to look at each other, never mind talk or laugh.

Determined to recoup a little of his lost emotional investment, David attempted to order the most provocatively expensive dishes he could find, but with starters averaging £6 and main courses around £14, he was rather stymied.

Not only are the prices far lower, the food is less classically French than I imagine it is at the Waterside Inn; alongside Gallic offerings such as grilled confit of rabbit legs, and mussels with Roquefort sauce, there is home-made pasta, vegetable tempura, and plenty of interesting fish and local game.

A basket of warm, floury rolls arrived as soon as we'd sat down in the plain, buttermilk-painted dining room, and first courses followed equally swiftly. Pan-fried chicken and duck livers were served on slices of walnut and raisin bread, not an entirely happy combination; though the livers themselves were superb, they'd have been better on a plain piece of toast. Twice-baked goat's cheese soufflé was light and delicately-flavoured, rather than palate-strippingly cheesy.

Main courses are cooked with the kind of attention to detail you don't often find in a country inn. My grilled wood-pigeon was beautifully dressed in a heart-shaped arrangement, criss-crossed with griddle marks, and cooked not so much pink as deep ruby red. Choucroute and a complementary jus fragrant with juniper berries delivered complexity; sweetness came from perfectly-cooked baby turnips, carrots and celery hearts. David's pan-fried beef tournedos cut like butter, though the meat was about three inches thick, and topped with a mustardy breadcrumb crust.

The pudding list is more strictly French than the rest of the menu, and we found ourselves wrangling over who was going to order clafoutis - the nearest the French have to a nursery pudding, and a favourite from shared holidays past. I conceded it to David, then had a quiet smirk at his disappointment when he found that it was made with yellow plums rather than cherries. ("Oh, I thought you knew that's what 'mirabelle' meant!") My chocolate fondant was dangerously good, hot sponge on the outside and melting chocolate within, spiked and spiced with candied fruits.

Coffee, despite the Gaggia machine burbling promisingly on the bar, wasn't great - in fact David's espresso could have been the product of a hospital vending machine. It came with sticky balls of soft-centred meringue, rather on the grand side for petit fours.

As we were leaving, we passed a pretty garden room at the back of the hotel, which is designed for private functions. Ideal for a wedding reception! I pointed out, though, as David gleefully parried, at this point in life I'm statistically more likely to be savaged by a puma than to get married. Our bill, including service, came to £80; we'd restrained ourselves to a glass of wine each, as we were both driving. In different directions. Not laughing.

The White Hart Inn, High Street, Nayland, nr Colchester, Suffolk.

(01206 263382) Tue-Sun 12- 2.30pm, 6.30-9.30pm. Limited disabled access. All cards.