Restaurant review, Luke's Dining Room.

Luke’s Dining Room Sanctum on the Green, The Old Cricket Common, Cookham Dean, Berkshire SL6 9NZ
Contact: 01628 482638 www.lukesdiningroom.com
Price: Three courses: £32.20

Cookham Dean is a dear village in a traditional mould, and Luke's Dining Room – named after the 19-year-old Luke Thomas, a chef for whom the phrase 'in a hurry' doesn't begin to cover it – looks pretty safe, too, at first glance. Entering the low, beamed building, smack into a broad, friendly bar, you could mistake it for one of those home counties havens, solid establishments kept buoyant by the surrounding acres of golf and leisure time. Up close – in its pearlised banquettes, energetic menu, unfussy staff – it feels inventive but not expensive.

I took O, a friend no older than the chef, just in case there was new terrain in the young palate that I may not be aware of. It turned out she was the most risk-averse diner you could conceive, so you'll have to forgive her choices, not to mention what she made the chef do to them once she'd chosen them (a steak so well done you could have worn it into battle). But even faced with great conservatism, this kitchen will do something unusual.

Bon bons of cheese (£8) – what does that bring to mind? A dusted, yellow affair, hard and chewy, like a lemon bonbon only not made of lemon, right? Wrong, in fact, and never has a moment of curiosity been so repaid.

Read more at telegraph.co.uk