The restaurant: Fez at Bagdad, White River

How to review a restaurant in an edition dedicated to budget eating? Eating out is hardly cheap, ever, because on top of the value of the food you are paying for a restaurant's staff, rent, electricity bills, the owner's new car - the full catastrophe.

I did suggest that we do a "blow the budget" review of the most expensive restaurant we could find, but the editor did not buy into that. So I await the "luxury" edition of Food Weekly, and offer the next best - reasonable value for money.

In 2010, Fez at Bagdad in White River was voted the most popular eatery in the Lowveld. In an interview in Travel Weekly, jeweller Jenna Clifford named it her favourite restaurant. It's possibly unique in that it has an adjoining airstrip - an ex-road - so you can literally drop in for lunch. One local lady once had such a fright over her lunch that she tried, unsuccessfully, to have it closed down. Over the road from the Casterbridge centre, Fez is a pleasant-enough venue with Moroccan decor and a terrace with olive trees in pots. The menu has a lot of sushi; a good burger with tzatziki, rocket and red onions; a tempting Moroccan lamb casserole; and some pastas.

I would imagine that part of the place's success was the bonhomie of owner Carl van der Merwe, who, despite the fact that he had just sold it, was plying the lunch tables with his charm earlier this month, somewhat worse for wear after a farewell party the night before. The specials board boasted a "fallow deer ragout on penne with parmesan" but when I complained to Van der Merwe that according to our waiter it was in fact finished, he said: "Oh s**t."

I loved the honesty, but maybe it kicks in when it's no longer your problem.

A friend and I shared a plate of cold smoked ostrich carpaccio served with salad greens, sun-dried tomatoes and parmesan shavings (R65), and a plate of salmon maki rolls (R40). The carpaccio was good but too lightly smoked for my friend. The maki rolls were good enough to make me wish we had ordered more.

For our mains we had baby chicken roasted with a Moroccan rub and a preserved lemon up its rear, served with thin chips (R90), and ravioli filled with spicy minced springbok in a creamy tomato sauce and parmesan (R80). My ravioli was great: the pasta slightly al dente, the filling subtle, the tomato sauce brilliant.

The chook looked impressively brown, but my difficult friend soon started trying to deconstruct it to work out what was in the rub, because he felt it should be spicier, hotter. Van der Merwe's wife Megan later e-mailed me the rub recipe: it had nine spices dominated by paprika, only a little cayenne pepper. I told my friend to shut up and stop eating green chillies with his food at home. He loved the preserved lemon and ate the whole thing.

He was also impressed with the cashew nut pie with honey, fresh cream and a tot of port (R59), although he pointed out that it had not been made that day. Were it not for the fact that said friend is a very good cook, I would blame it all on the internet: these days everyone is a food critic, or worse, a food blogger.

Fez is a bit of a local institution, and I hope that new owner Mike Williamson and his wife Carol keep up its reputation. He came back to South Africa from an engineering job in Brisbane to buy it, which some people might see as insane. Perhaps not, what better than serving good food in the Lowveld?

• Fez at Bagdad, Hazyview Road, opposite Casterbridge Centre, White River0137501252