Saturday, October 25, 2008

The Walnut Tree

A year or two back, the Walnut Tree at Llanddewi Skirrid (near Abergavenny) featured on one of the Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares programmes. I recall that in attempting to do fine dining the team had over-reached and the local population had voted with their feet against the over-priced menu. Cue our Gordon banging his head against a wall as the advice to declutter, brighten up and serve simple local produce was ignored.

Now Shaun Hill has taken on the restaurant and offers a choice of 6-8 starters, mains and desserts for around £36 plus wine and coffee. Appetisers are home-made, delicious and free, as are the truffles served with the coffee. Produce is largely local and sea-food and offal feature highly. In other words Gordon's advice has been taken and the place is going well.

I had oyster baignettes followed by wild duck (I even got a bit of shot to prove it). Mrs T had a roast winter vegetable salad with quails eggs and then skate.

They were doing about 20 covers on a wild Thursday evening in October. It's only about an hour from Nailsea.

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