Seated on a couch amid the wood-lined splendour of the library at Lucknam Park Hotel in Colerne, just north of Bath, chef Hywel Jones looks very settled. To fans of his cooking, this is exactly what they want to hear. They want the boy to be settled. They want him to be happy, and at last he is.

Nobody has ever doubted the 33-year-old's talent in the kitchen. His first venture as head chef, Foliage at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London's Knightsbridge, won him the adoration of the critics when it opened in 2000, this one included. We loved his way with scallop ravioli and roast langoustine; we adored his three preparations of lemon or foie gras or duck. We swooned at the complexity of his food. Some chefs put five ingredients on a plate because they think they ought to. If Jones did it, each one made sense.

Then it all went, well, a little strange. A few weeks after he landed a Michelin star, he announced he was leaving Foliage. 'It was a case of me wanting to prove I could do it on my own' he says now. For many years he had been under the wing of David Nicholls, the executive chef of the Mandarin Oriental and one of the great unsung heroes of British gastronomy. Jones thought the time had come to leave home, so he went to Lola's, an admired but hardly top-flight restaurant in London's Islington. 'I thought I could take a local restaurant and make it something special.'

It didn't work out like that. His food held up. It was getting to eat the stuff that was the problem. The service was so bad, diners could wait up to an hour between courses. Front of house just wasn't up to the job and Jones found it hugely frustrating. Within six months he was on the move again, this time to Pharmacy, the über-hip joint in Notting Hill Gate, west London.

'I knew from the beginning it was the wrong move,' Jones says now. 'But I was determined to make it work.' Sadly the damage had already been done. 'Business was falling off before I got there and then I changed the style of food.' Jones received the first really bad reviews of his career and, within a few months, the business was bust. Michelin, which likes consistency from its star chefs, had withdrawn its accolades. The critics had lost faith. It is not overstating things to say that Hywel Jones was now regarded as a chef who had once had a great future, in the past tense.

And then he resurfaced in Colerne. Lucknam Park, part of the highly regarded Relais and Châteaux group, is a small but luxurious hotel, with its own spa and an equestrian centre. What it didn't have was a reputation for food. 'We always seemed to be a whisker away from accolades,' says Harry Murray, the managing director. 'But they never came. It was time for a change.'

For Jones it was a perfect fit. London had proved a pressure cooker, which had taken its toll. Plus, as a passionate Welshman, it would enable him to move back to Newport with his wife and young son. And then there was the chance to be near the source of the food he would be cooking.

'That's the main thing that's changed with what I'm doing,' he says. 'I'm much more in touch with my suppliers. I know my butchers. I know the people who grow my vegetables and I've seen them growing. I'm also able to use a lot of terrific Welsh produce.' He plucks herbs from the hotel's herb garden, wild garlic from the grounds and talks about raising his own chickens.

All of that enthusiasm shows where it counts: on the plate. A starter of organic Devon duck three ways, brings the lightest of liver parfaits that sings on the tongue, a curl of smoked breast around a deep-fried quail's egg and a delicate tian of duck confit. Veal sweetbreads come glazed in Carmarthen Ham with an outrageous fritter of wild mushrooms and tarragon that has the crisp moreish texture of an onion bhaji, but the earthy flavours of the hills and valleys outside. The fillets of red mullet are perfectly cooked, then there's honeyed roast tomato tart tatin and a smoked aubergine puree - Provençe on a plate - or a single scallop with a rich seafood lasagne and a punchy hazelnut emulsion. It is complex, highly developed food. But, as with Foliage, there’s nothing extraneous.

Is it cheap? No. Dinner - and, other than Sunday lunch, it is only dinner - costs £55 a head. Throw in wine from the heavy-duty list, plus service, and you're looking down the barrels of £150 for two. But this is once-a-year food, the grand experience served in grand dining rooms with beautiful service coordinated by Bruno Asselin, who has worked alongside Hywel for many years.

It is, in short, Michelin-starred food without the star. When the Michelin results were announced in January of this year Lucknam was passed over. Jones is philosophical. 'They probably need to see some consistency out of me,' he says. Still, they've already won a third rosette from the AA and Tatler named them best restaurant outside London in their awards late last year. The star will come when it's time. This time Hywel Jones is in no rush. He's not going anywhere else. Which is just the way it should be.

· Lucknam Park, Colerne, Chippenham, Wiltshire
01225 742777