8/10
Telephone 01568 780359
Address Green Lane, Yarpole, Herefordshire
Open Tues-Sun, lunch, noon-3pm, dinner, 6.30-11pm.
Price About £30 a head all-in
Wheelchair access

The era of the pub as boozer is almost over, but we need to distinguish between those places that serve food and those that cook, then serve food. Gastropub may be a clumsy word, but it's a useful one, signifying pubs where dishes are prepared by real cooks, rather than bought in and reheated by unskilled labour dressed as chefs. For many years I had a restaurant, Merchant House, in Ludlow, and was astounded by how many people were willing to spend money on good food year-round. Equally intriguing was that the Marches could attract and support so many good eateries at every level.

Ludlow's highest rated restaurant, and my erstwhile competitor, is Hibiscus. Its menu is cutting edge and cosmopolitan, competing in skill and finesse with great restaurants worldwide - not just locally. So I wanted to see what sort of fist the owners, Claude and Claire Bosi, have made of a country pub, The Bell Inn at Yarpole.

Yarpole is an attractive but undistinguished village, reached by narrow lanes from not much wider roads that connect places you are unlikely to know unless you live in the area or are lost. The Bosis have installed Claude's brother Cedric as boss, planted an enterprising herb and vegetable plot, and transformed the food into something well worth a detour. The setting is traditional - exposed beams, oak tables, that sort of thing. The menu looks traditional, too. That said, menus are interesting only as indicators of price and style, and give little clue as to the skill or taste involved in the kitchen, or ultimately whether or not your meal will be worth getting fat for.

The style here is unfussy, with the seasonality and good provenance of its ingredients gently obvious. Elwy Valley lamb and rare roast Hereford beef formed part of a starter that read like something out of Gerard Manley Hopkins and included new potato salad and a caper and gherkin dressing. This menu reads as food you want to eat rather than write about, appetising rather than challenging. But the delivery was of a higher order.

My starter was a caramelised ham hock terrine with mustard vinaigrette and an almond, green bean salad. The terrine was warm, with a texture like a corned beef hash, and contrasted nicely with the crunchy salad. The balance of flavours worked well, each component adding something to the dish rather than just taking up space on the plate or looking pretty. My wife, Anja, had smoked haddock and potato cake with creamed leeks and vichyssoise sauce. The fishcake was just as it should be, crisp on the outside and filled with generous amounts of the main ingredient. It arrived bathed in a fresh, soup-like sauce, which made a nice change from the usual salsa and relish accompaniments. The dish as a whole was a reminder why fishcakes became popular in the first place.

Our main courses were crisp organic belly pork with confit of plum tomato, colcannon, crushed peas and brown sugar jus for Anja and poached cod fillet with courgette and coriander purée and glazed spring vegetables for me. What linked both dishes was their execution. The cod was poached perfectly, still moist and shining mother-of-pearl, and the vegetables were fresh and crunchy in a chlorophyll sauce of green herbs and oil. The pork had been slow-cooked to a rich softness, then the skin roasted to crisp crackling. The minutiae of what herbs and garnishes came with each are peripheral to both dishes, really - care over basic techniques and the sourcing of top-quality ingredients are what differentiates cooking such as this from similar-sounding offerings countrywide.

The pudding list was short, sweet and seasonal. I had my first summer pudding of the year - a little too much bread to fruit for my taste, but still nicely pressed, tart and refreshing. Anja's lemon posset came with fruit sorbet and bitter lemon curd. Both dishes were fine, but neither reached the high points of the rest of the meal. Maybe we were just full.

And the cost: £60 for two, including a pint of Old Hooky, two glasses of wine and two large espressos. The Bell already attracts plenty of diners from nearby Ludlow who know where Yarpole is. It's worth consulting a map to join them.

· Matthew Norman is away