I was hurtling north. I needed supper. I was not prepared to endure trial by M6 service station. I wanted something to restore peace of mind, to bring cheer to a weary soul, to rest and water. All right, all right. Nether Alderley wasn't exactly bang on my route, but, if you are of a curious cast of mind, there is always pleasure in heading along unfamiliar roads in unfamiliar country. Who knows what delights may lurk along the way?

In this case, Wizard was an unexpected delight. The only reference I could find was in the Michelin that gave it a sign that is supposed to indicate decent grub at fair prices. That tends to be a contentious issue. Not so much the decent grub bit as the fair price. What passes on the nod in London tends to raise an eyebrow or an expletive elsewhere, although, to be fair, it seems to me that prices in the regions are catching up pretty fast.

Wizard is a case in point. First courses bounced around between £3.50 (soup, glorious soup) and £7.95 (fried scallops with salad, sweet chilli dressing and Parmesan). Main courses started at £9.95 (filo tartlet filled with creamed oyster mushrooms, spinach and goats cheese) and topped off at £15.50 for chargrilled fillet steak, horseradish mash, confit carrots and ruby port jus. These would not be unremarkable in Islington or Soho. Not that there would be any trouble paying these prices to judge by the well-minted parties at the other tables. Blue-rinse-and-chiffon, Gucci loafer and blazer, fat wallet and gold card were much in evidence, all expertly handled by the friendly, busy service, as indeed, was I.

I steered a sort of middle course through the menu, what with sautéed chicken livers with thyme jus (there was quite a bit of the jus line on the menu) and red cabbage marmalade at £4.50, and then a roast breast of Goosnargh duck carved over butternut squash with honey and white wine jus at £13.75. You can tell from this that the food has enough of the fashionable about it without being challengingly cutting edge. On the other hand the familiar was refreshed by distinct culinary individuality.

For example, you don't often see chicken livers on menus as often I would like these days, except in the parfait form. These were beautiful fat, buttery cushions, cooked with understanding and precision. The thyme jus tasted more of chicken than thyme, but never mind; it was clean, elegant and well judged. And the marmalade was not your average Golden Shred, but crunchy and slightly astringent, balancing the richness of the rest of the dish. So you see, the sum was fine because the parts had been clearly thought through and treated sympathetically.

I first came to appreciate the sweet and deep flavoured virtues of the Goosnargh duck thanks to Paul Heathcote. I won't say the Wizard's version was in the same class as that master craftsman's. For one thing, I don't believe that it had been cooked on the bone as the maestro recommends, which helps it to keep its shape, its juices and its natural tenderness. This had some of the qualities, but was a good deal more challenging on the teeth.

But the combination with butternut squash was spot on. The squash had been crushed rather than puréed, with little crunchy nuggets of caramel lodged around and about, and another clearly flavoured, nicely judged gravy to lubricate each mouthful. Other vegetables came on a separate dish. I shall pass over these not because they were badly cooked - they weren't - but because they were superfluous. I would guess that local custom called for them.

Under the benign influence of a glass or two of distinctly perky Hunters Pinot Noir from New Zealand from a very sound wine list the beamed, daub-and-wattle interior of Wizard was looking distinctly wizardish, like a made over, tidied up version of an Elizabethan front room with candles, chests, copper jugs, settles, sconces, tapestried curtains and cushions and dried hops hung along the beams. It was a warmly intimate scene that called for pudding.

Pudding came in the form of a warm chocolate brownie with hot chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream. What was nice about this was that it wasn't too sweet, which it could very easily have been. The brownie itself, about the size of a breeze block, was a light version of the great classic. The sauce maybe lacked total chocolate conviction, but it was fine.

Looking back over this review, I notice a slightly carping note creeping in here and there, which maybe gives a wrong impression. I liked Wizard. It was good to me. It is a good place, well run and serving very well cooked, pleasingly put-together grub. The food part of the bill came to £22.20, which, on reflection, probably does come under the fair price limit. I managed to boost in a bit through the Hunters Pinot Noir at £25, but that was my choice. And choice is what it's all about