White Cross

A somewhat ugly pub, in a fine canalside location, the White Cross is known for its homemade all-day food and its 14 real ales. Portions are extraordinarily generous. For £5, I got a slice of dense, rough-cut, seriously piggy pork pie the size of my outstretched hand and as deep as my index finger, alongside a pile of decent, fluffy skin-on chips. Less could be more, in this case, as the pie certainly didn't need its herb-stuffing topping and the accompanying pot of zingy orange-and-raisin chutney. But if you're on a budget and need to fill up, the White Cross should be your number one destination.

The wider menu takes in deli boards, sandwiches and sausages in various states (with mash, casseroled etc) and a fantastic-sounding steak and ale pie that uses beer from the Tirril brewery, in Appleby in Westmorland. Steaks apart, all the dishes are under £10. You'll find Tirril's Old Faithful on the bar, alongside regional beers from the likes of Bowland and Lytham breweries. If White Cross ripped out its red-brick bar and its dated patterned carpets – in fact, had a general refurb – it would be a very good pub indeed.
• Snacks and sandwiches from £4, mains from £5. Quarry Road, 01524 33999, thewhitecross.co.uk

The Music Room

A spin-off from award-winning local coffee roaster J Atkinson & Co, the Music Room is where owner Ian Steel and his son Maidment put their beans into action across a menu of next-level espresso, pour-over filter and cafetière drinks (coffees from £1.50). The knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff will happily talk you through blends, tastes and extraction methods, without blinding you with science, and the finished drinks could hold their own with anything produced in London's "third wave" coffee bars.

If you feel the need to flannel convincingly about your brew, the walls are helpfully lined with tutorial posters which walk the novice through the gamut of coffee aromas, from, erm, roast beef to garden peas. The Music Room also sells a small selection of brilliant cakes by talented local Debbie Kaye, including root vegetable and fig cake or pear and plum Bakewell. The Music Room itself is an attention-grabber: the interior has been cleanly decluttered by the Steels, but retains its three-storey Victorian elaborate facade. It makes for an almost Berlin-ish contrast with the neighbouring graffiti and urban decay.
• Cakes from £2.40. Sun Street, 01524 65470, themusicroomcafe.com

The Sun

This handsome city centre inn (all exposed stone, wooden beams and polished rusticity), serves good food all day. In particular, its sharing deli boards of local cheeses, charcuterie and items from the excellent Port of Lancaster Smokehouse are a boon for the picky budget traveller (£8-£16). Its evening menu includes a few other dishes, such as fish and chips or the Sun's own sausage and mash, which come in under £10, but, if you're watching the pennies, the daytime menus offer greater choice. The Sun's bar is a cosy bolthole at breakfast (until 10.30am weekdays). The dimmed lighting, relaxed friendly staff and the background hum of consensual jazz standards will ease you gently into the day.

Prices might seem a shade high – for instance, £8 for eggs Benedict – but portions are huge, quality good and everyone gets toast and Wilkinson's jams thrown in. Finish the Sun's small hillock of smoked salmon, sunny scrambled eggs and fresh Scottish pancakes (£6), and it will set you up for hours of sightseeing and history. Incidentally, the Sun is owned by the dynamic Lancaster Brewery, so the beer choice is both wide (10 real-ale hand-pumps) and interesting.
• Breakfast and lunch dishes from £3.50, evening mains from £8.50. 63-65 Church Street, 01524 66006, thesunhotelandbar.co.uk

Hodgson's

Nigel and Linda Hodgson's chippy was named the nation's best in 2006. Clearly they are maintaining a fearsome standard. The evidence is there in the queue snaking out of the door on a Friday lunchtime, and on the plate. The beef dripping-versus-vegetable oil argument is not one we have space to revisit here, but when you're using vegetable oil, as the Hodgson's do, and your batter is good and your oil supremely hot, it is possible to produce a uniquely clean and light plate of fish and chips. Specifically, the batter should form a shell within which the fish should steam, not fry.

Even among those veg-oil-powered chippies which get it right, Hodgson's haddock and chips is a cut above. Its batter is almost tempura-thin, the interior a crisp honeycomb. There was no grease, no stray patches of thickened, gloopy batter, and it had a pronounced seasoned, savoury flavour. It was as perfect a fish batter as I have ever eaten. The fish itself fell apart in meaty, pearly flakes, the chips were, likewise, crisp, rustling beauties of an almost buttery softness within. Hodgson's is a few minutes' walk from the city-centre, but well worth the detour.
• Fish and chips from £3.95. 96 Prospect Street, 01524 67763, hodgsonschippy.com

Pizza Margherita

Opened more than 30 years ago by Wendy Allen, sister of Pizza Express founder, Peter Boizot, Margherita is a portal through which you can step back in time to when the Pizza Express aesthetic (that bistro-brasserie mishmash of big mirrors, bigger windows, indoor shrubbery, Athena art prints and cast-iron, marble-topped cafe tables) was still the definition of go-getting metropolitan sophistication. That is not a criticism, incidentally. That look is a bit of a classic, in its way, and far superior to the primary-coloured plasticity that a lot of high-street restaurants now favour.

PM's pizzas are, similarly, almost indistinguishable from the better ones you might have eaten at Pizza Express. I'd have preferred more (any, in fact) char on the base, but the dough has that airy lightness and slight residual sweetness that indicate that it's fresh and has been properly worked. The toppings are sound: thin slivers of nicely vinegary preserved artichoke, decent ham, assertive anchovies. It is a perfectly serviceable pizza. Takeaway available.
• Small pizzas from £4.85, regular from £6.95. 2 Moor Lane, 01524 36333, pizza-margherita.co.uk

Whale Tail

In a little courtyard off Penny Street, upstairs from not-for-profit wholefood co-op Single Step, this busy vegetarian and vegan cafe is well-known for its unusually good meat-free cooking. Its falafel (incredibly light and delicate, encased in perfectly crisp shells, beautifully spiced and seasoned, long on savoury flavour) live up to the billing, served with a fresh minty tzatziki, so-so standard pitta and salad. Elsewhere, that day's specials included an interesting-sounding creamy potato, smoked cheese, apple and basil bake, a chunky vegetable and barley broth, and several mouth-watering puddings, such as apple and sultana crumble, and chocolate and almond torte.

There is also a standard menu of salads, jacket potatoes and filled organic wholemeal rolls. The space, a fairly utilitarian cafe prettified with kitschy, crafty art and objects, has a pleasant easy-going atmosphere. If you want to expand your horizons, and not just your waistline, there is the obligatory notice board at the entrance, advertising everything from Pilates and poetry to pottery classes.
• Dishes from £2.95. 78a Penny Street, 01524 845133, whaletailcafe.co.uk

The Sultan Food Court

This big airy basement underneath the Sultan of Lancaster restaurant is an unusual mix of daytime canteen, art and crafts gallery and delicatessen. The deli's range is limited and the stock is a rather random mixture of global foods. The cafe menu, however, is more interesting. It is fairly short but roves far and wide from Lancashire cheese sandwiches to Middle Eastern tabbouleh and falafel.

A core of biryanis, grilled meat wraps and snacks such as samosas and pakoras are also available as part of sharing platters, with dishes like Bombay potatoes, chicken tikka masala and little patra parcels. A trio of lamb, chicken and vegetable samosas were, the rather tokenistic salad aside, great value at £3.75, all bursting with flavoursome ground meat and bright-eyed vegetables, all breezily seasoned with fresh herbs and spices. The service is warm and chatty, incidentally, as it seems to be across the whole of Lancaster.
• Snacks from £2.95, meals from £3.95. Brock Street, 01524 849494, sultanoflancaster.com

Soupanova

No prizes for guessing the main attraction here. Alison Barker's venue – part 1950s tiled coffee bar, part boho diner – is Lancaster's soup bar du jour, dispensing five homemade varieties each day to a hungry lunchtime crowd. Flavours range from a simple carrot and courgette to a fiery Malayan curried vegetable, all served, as appropriate, with black pepper, parmesan, croutons and breads from a variety of artisan bakers, including Lunesdale Bakery in Kirkby Lonsdale, a few miles outside Lancaster.

A sample medium pot of smoked bacon and vegetable soup (£2.50) was spot on: blitzed to a robust thickness, nicely seasoned, the vegetables accurately cooked, that soul-stirring smoky bacon flavour shining through. As I walked up Cheapside, it was just the thing to keep the winter winds at bay. Soupanova also sells sandwiches, salads, homemade cakes, tortilla and fresh smoothies.
• Soup from £2. 18 Church Street, 01524 841488

Mung Mee

While there are a number of sub-£10 dishes on this Thai restaurant's evening menu, the budget traveller is best visiting for lunch, when two courses cost £7.99. Of the sampled dishes, homemade Thai-style sai grok sausages are interestingly fatty pork bangers bound with rice; the tom yam soup, while not the most refined version ever, delivers in all the key areas. It's fiery and aromatic, each mouthful delivering an interplay of hot and sour, fishy and savoury flavours. After lunch, foodists should browse the aisles of Mung Mee's east Asian supermarket next door, where you can pick up everything from canned pennywort drinks to Chinese salted duck eggs.
• Lunch, two courses, £7.99. 6A Chapel Street, 01524 64107, mungmee.co.uk

The Borough

A case of saving the best until last? Quite possibly. Located on a handsome Georgian square by the town hall, this pleasantly gussied-up gastropub serves honest, locally sourced food at remarkably low-prices, certainly in the daytime. Its two-course "school dinners" menu (£7.95), served Monday to Saturday, noon-6.30pm, is a bona fide bargain, the quality far superior to anything you will remember from school.

A plate of pork belly arrived atop a smooth, creamy pile of mash, with an apple sauce that sensibly dialled down the sweetness and a gravy that spoke volubly of wine, herbs and deglazed roasting pans. The pork itself came apart in thick, moist flavoursome strands. The only clanger was the crackling, one half of which was flabby and inedible. It was a bit sloppy of the kitchen to send that out but, even so, for the money, it was a very good plate of food. The bar has seven real ale pumps, including a Borough IPA brewed for the pub. A sample pint of Manchester brewery Marble's Best (£3.20) was in superb condition – much spicier, sweeter and hoppier than the usual boring brown liquid passed off as best bitter. The staff are efficient and eager to please, too.
• Two-course daytime menu, £7.95, deli boards from £6.25. 3 Dalton Square, 01524 64170, theboroughlancaster.co.uk

Tony travelled from Manchester to Lancaster with First TransPennine Express (tpexpress.co.uk). For more information on things to see and do in and around Lancaster, visit citycoastcountryside.co.uk