The Walnut Tree, 9.75/10 (0.25 points deducted for the sloping table)

Telephone: 01873 852797
Address: Llanddewi Skirrid, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire
Open: Tues-Sat, lunch, noon-2.30pm; dinner, 7-10pm

Being one of the smuggest and most boastful people even this industry has to offer, I love to draw attention to my infallible instincts. Where so-called rivals sometimes claim to know what to expect within seconds of entering a place, I can sense what's coming hours before arrival. "Brace yourself," I warned my cousin, Nick, as we hit the M4 en route to Wales, "this one has calamity written all over it in italicised block capitals."

He clutched the roadmap and winced. The last time we went to the Abergavenny area for lunch, it took us two hours to reach a point 500 yards from the restaurant; and, thanks largely to the directions of a malign and demented postman, another two hours to close the deal. But my pessimism about this trip had less to do with the memory of that fiasco than appreciating the extreme danger when two much admired institutions collide.

For some 25 years, under its old owners, Franco and Ann Taruschio, the Walnut Tree had a stellar reputation. As did Shaun Hill as chef-proprietor of his own Michelin-starred joint, the Merchant House, in Ludlow. Eventually, as Matthew Fort recounted in his column in this magazine only the other week, both the Taruschios and Hill sold up, before at the end of last year the latter emerged from semi-retirement to co-purchase the Walnut Tree himself.

"You've lost me," Nick muttered. "A great chef goes to a great restaurant, and you're saying that that's a recipe for disaster? What are you thinking?"

I was thinking of Brian Clough at Leeds United - that apparently ideal synthesis of inspired manager and outstanding football club that so famously ended in chaotic acrimony after 44 days.

"So you're saying it cannot work because this Shaun chap won't get along with Billy Bremner?"

"Trust me," I said. "In this game, you have to follow your instincts."

Some four hours later, after a postman-free journey and a memorably languid lunch, Nick finally directed the credit to where it belonged. "You were right," he said. "Everything has been hopeless. The very slightly slanting table, for example. And the, um... No, just the table and its incline - I can't fault another thing."

Nor could I. From the divine bread rolls at the start to the dinky macaroons at the end, it had been one of those meals that has you scrambling around looking for quarter-points to dock from the score on account of such serious failings as imperfectly planed wooden furniture.

Everything else about this place, which sits in the slurry-scented foothills of bucolic Monmouthshire, sings of a blissful and fecund union between sheer talent and lack of pretension. The L-shaped room is relaxing in an understated, posh-farmhouse kind of way, with low ceilings, abstract prints and the odd lemon tree to lend a faint Mediterranean aura. The service is smart and friendly, the wine list is not one that takes liberties, the à la carte menu is a riot of enticement and the set menu is an almost indecent bargain.

As for Hill's cooking, which is modern British with strong Dick Emery (Ooh, you are offal!) leanings, this is technically flawless testament to the perplexingly unpopular art of making ingredients taste more rather than less of themselves.

Nick, who went à la carte, started with a mouclade of mussels, a large bowl of fine, plump crustacea in a winey, spicy, herby sauce, followed by wild duck with morels and a game gravy, a huge serving of thick, purple-pink slices with scrunchy little Italianate roast potatoes and spinach. "Wonderful," he said. "The duck's just so... ducky."

And good morels?

"Well, we must all strive to have good morels, old boy."

Lustrous as those dishes were, however, mine were better still. Not least because they cost about half as much, show-casing Hill's alchemical gift for transporting cheap, basic ingredients into the most lavish, 24-carat delights. Hare costs relatively little, and pasta costs thruppence to make, but the Walnut Tree's deep yellow pappardelle with a deep brown hare sauce was a medley of slow-cooked, powerful, luxurious flavours fit to be set before a Venetian doge. Equally marvellous was my main course, a brace of quail roasted to a flawlessly crispy finish without losing an iota of succulence, and served with braised, bacon-dotted lentils.

Both puddings - a Bakewell tart that you couldn't really resent for bringing that cardiac infarction forward by three to six months, and a beautifully balanced torte of chocolate and blood orange - were sensational. Later, over coffee by the fire, the chef joined us for a chat. At 60, after all the gruelling years in Ludlow, Hill seemed a bit surprised to have found himself starting all over again, but he said it just felt the right thing to do.

"Yes, I've heard that about the restaurant business," chipped in Nick with a pinch more sardony than I felt good manners strictly demanded. "That whatever else you do, you must always trust your instincts."

The bill

Mouclade £7
Wild duck with morels £17
Chocolate & blood orange torte £7
3-course set lunch £20
Hare pappardelle
Roast quail & lentils
Bakewell tart
2 glasses Aquileia del Friuli £8
4 glasses Les Yeuses Merlot £18
Filter coffee £3
Espresso £3
Subtotal £83
Tip £15
Total £98