It is several years since restaurant critic AA Gill wrote of his meal at a Welsh dining pub, the Felin Fach Griffin Inn, that it was "Exceptional anywhere in Europe - in Wales, it was as damn near miraculous as the Angel of Mons". The pub, between Brecon and Hay-on-Wye, has since enjoyed column inches of rapturous praise, not only for its food but also for the handful of bedrooms subsequently added upstairs (which will be stuffed with literary types attending the Hay Festival when you read this).
The reason I am telling you all this is that the chef who wrought the miracle, Charles Inkin, still co-owner of The Griffin, is now overseeing the finishing touches to half a dozen rooms at his latest venture, The Gurnard's Head, near Zennor in Cornwall.
Has he gone way out west because it might, in the eyes of a restaurant critic, be deemed a culinary desert? More importantly, in this untamed part of Cornwall, will I ever find it?
"Oh you'll see it all right," says the voice on the phone when I ring for directions, "The name's on the roof."
Sure enough, as I wind along the coast road hugged by moorland and lonely farms towards Land's End, there's no mistaking it. Where the Griffin is "look-at-me" pink (against a backdrop of green fields), the Gurnard's Head is lemon yellow against gloomy heath, its name etched on the slate roof in white letters large enough to be seen if not from space at least from a helicopter leaving the little airport down the road for the Scilly Isles.
If Inkin only acquires pubs with a garish exterior, things do tend to calm down inside. Through doorways are soothing vistas of flagstones, scrubbed wood, clotted-cream and pale-green paintwork, and an inviting terracotta and blue restaurant. People are propping up the bar beneath a large painting of a surprised cow. It's so chilled I probably wouldn't care if I only had a hammock upstairs. But the rooms are finished - not to the squeaky, minimalist smartness of the Griffin's though, which is reflected in the rates. Rustic simplicity costs £15-£20 less. My room's cheerful rather than elegant, with a simple shower and loo, old paintings and prints, a Roberts radio, tea and coffee things on a brightly painted tray, and checked Roman blinds.
Never mind all that, you cry, tell us about the food. These days, Inkin has head chefs in his kitchens. Here it's a young Kiwi called Matt Williamson, who is delivering pub food just as it should be. No truffles, he says, and just occasionally foie gras, but lots of Cornish pilchards, crab, skate and local veg. Dinner in the bar is a triumphant piece of hake with tartare sauce, and a slightly less fabulous sirloin steak with heavenly courgette puree, all totally eclipsed by the honey and lavender ice cream which follows (I know this because my notebook says "Ohmigod"). The meal is accompanied halfway through by a folk duo, who sing in Cornish but say things in English like: "The more I drink, the better I sing," and "The more I drink, the better you sound."
Breakfast is eaten en famille in the restaurant. I'm late, having showered after a blowy walk through fields to the rocky Gurnard's Head from which the pub takes its name, and everyone clears off when I sit down. Which is fine by me as I can watch the cows driven past the window to the dairy while I sip fresh OJ and work my way through a puddle of scrambled eggs and delicious mushrooms.
· Doubles from £97.50 B&B, £142 B&B for a couple, dinner from around £24 per head for three courses excluding drinks. 01736 796928, gurnardshead.co.uk
