FORTY-TWO years ago, Vince Serino took a path well-travelled before and since by his fellow Italians.

He left his home near Naples and came to England to seek a better life, equipped only with the knowledge of what good Italian food tasted like and how to prepare it.

After 12 years learning the restaurant trade, he managed to open his own establishment in what was then a slightly rundown market town on the banks of the river Tees. Santoro opened in Yarm. It slowly established a reputation for good quality Italian food served in comfortable, informal surroundings.

As Yarm High Street changed from a humble and somewhat tatty and traffic-choked thoroughfare into the fashionable place it is today (still traffic plagued, mind), so did Santoro, the restaurant moving across the High Street to a prime spot next to the town hall.

Despite there now being more bars and restaurants in the High Street than pubs, Santoro has survived and prospered through Vince and family's adherence to first principles - good food, competitively priced and served by genuinely friendly staff in surroundings which everybody feels comfortable in.

Santoro has that last bit particularly well covered. A long, thin, almost corridor-like, room with a bar at the front and kitchen at the rear, it feels intimate and café-casual at the same time. Whether in jeans and T-shirts or black tie and posh frocks, you can dine at Santoro's and not feel out of place. The Serino welcome, often now delivered by son Ross and, occasionally, t'other son Ricci, remains sincere and constant.

The same goes for the food. We have been visiting Santoro for 11 years and it always features among our best-place recommendations.

Enough said.

Well, not quite. We have not visited in an official capacity, so to speak, since 2003. Back then we had dinner, so last weekend we tried Saturday lunch.

For £24, we had two courses each.

There's a range of about six main dishes including two pastas (carbonara and ragu), a salmon salad, bruschetta, a wild mushroom, chicken and cheese crepe (my choice) and peppered strips of fillet beef with a wine and cream sauce (Sylvia's).

The fingers of well-sauced tender fillet were still slightly pink and described as "delish".

My crepe held together well and was not soggy, despite it sitting in a rich, sweetish sauce which was possibly Marsala or Madeirabased.

There were plenty of herbs and the wild mushrooms gave the dish an almost gamey quality.

These main dishes were served with sautéed new potatoes and a lightly-dressed salad and had been preceded by a small dish of garlic bread - something of a Santoro trademark. You might think something as ubiquitous as garlic bread could never be a trademark, but Santoro's garlic bread is a little bit special, with the garlic butter spread generously so it soaks through to every extremity of the French stick bread rounds. Gorgeous.

We finished with a white chocolate and Baileys cheesecake for her and a classic tiramisu for him(me). The observant among you will have noted that Sylvia had a similar thing at Hardwick Hall the previous week. It was an interesting comparison. The Hardwick torte had more Baileys, but the Santoro cheesecake had more chocolate.

Neither could quite match the cheesecake at Reeth's Burgoyne Hotel a fortnight before. And this from the woman who "doesn't do desserts."

My tiramisu was the right balance of sweetness and bitter coffee, with not too much cream. It was topped with a scoop of white chocolate chip vanilla ice cream.

Another super Santoro meal. Service was exemplary, as ever, but there was one thing missing - head waiter Gianni, who because of his near-30 years' service to the Serino family (is that a local record for a waiter?) gets his Saturday lunchtimes off.

We will return to celebrate this milestone with him and the rest of the Serino clan who, collectively, still set the standards in Yarm.