The beauty of The Walnut Tree Inn is....... well, it's a few things, to be honest. Not only does it have absolutely stellar food in an easy, relaxed setting, a wonderful location amongst the green hills of Llandewi Skirrid, just outside Abergavenny, its long-held (with a bit of a break) Michelin star, but there's also that feeling this place has been home to decades of joy and celebration.
A celebration of good food, friendships, history, there's been a restaurant here since the early 1960s when celebrated chef Franco Taruschio charmed Welsh diners, and ones from further afield, with his Italian dishes - the mushroom lasagne was legendary - and it became the place to eat for a good four decades.
Now its co-owner with Caradog Hotels, part of The Angel group, is the much-celebrated Shaun Hill who has had a close relationship with The Walnut Tree Inn for 30 plus years, as a diner of Franco's and had his 40th birthday at The Walnut Tree, also part of the staff after an impressive 51 years is the woman who'll greet you most day if you come in for lunch, Pauline McKay. She started for a week back in February 1972 and has been a firm fixture since then - celebrating her golden anniversary with the Inn with a big party in 2022.
Read more: The story behind the Welsh hotel that can't stop winning awards
It says something about a place where people circle back to time again, or, if like Swiss restaurant manager, Etienne Humbert, you're approached to fill a post and The Walnut Tree's reputation precedes itself, the answer is of course a yes. While the dishes are almost certainly made with pride and creativity, the way people, customers, feel is also a source of pride.
Shaun took over the Mid Wales restaurant back in 2007, says: "For a lot of them it's like being in a club. If you come here on a Saturday, for instance, at lunchtime, lots of people know each other, and they stay here until five o'clock talking. And, and so obviously they're comfortable here don't feel oppressed by the waiting staff, or uncomfortable, that they should be gone."
The staff must feel comfortable, too, for the dynamic to be easy enough to make the diner feel at home and Etienne reveals that Shaun is a big part of this, saying: "Shaun is a great man, even though he's been cooking for 50 years, been on TV, won loads of awards, he's still down to earth and easy to approach." The Swiss 35-year-old who trained in hospitality management in his home country adds that there was a mix of things, including the opportunity to work with Shaun, that brought him to the Walnut Tree at first, and its reputation gives him a sense pride.
After the pandemic there was a bit of a struggle with staff, but Etienne is pleased that the current team are gelling. "When you recruit we try to get the right people, the right attitude, maybe not with the strongest CV, but are willing to learn and help each other," explains the dad-of-one, who has settled into the Abergavenny life well, with his little girl attending a local school.
"We're only open four days a week, so it's always the same team working together so we need to get along because that's key to a successful business. If we're having fun while working, then we'll have fun interacting with the guests," says Etienne.
Shaun, who at 76 has worked in every version of high-end culinary posts as you can think of, started his career in American chef, restaurateur and TV presenter Robert Carrier's eponymous restaurant in Islington in the 1960s where he cooked for the likes of Francis Bacon and Kenneth Williams. He took his skills to The Gay Hussar in Soho, Gidleigh Park in Devon and ran his own restaurant from his home in Ludlow for 10 years and he worked with Michel Roux for British Airways on their first class menus. This fed (no apologies for the pun) into his love of travel and soaking up cuisines and flavours from around the world, the influence of which is still evident in his menus today.
But he was drawn to The Walnut Tree after becoming a frequent customer during Taruschio's reign when he was based in Ludlow, an easy drive for Sunday dinner on the day his Merchant House restaurant was closed. After years as a fan, the opportunity popped up for Shaun to steer the Walnut Tree back to its former glory. When Taruschio left the business in early 2000s the mantle passed to new owners Francesco and Enrica Mattioli, who along with Stephen Terry - now owner/head chef at the Hardwick the other side of Abergavenny - saw the restaurant gain its first Michelin star back in 2002. Fast forward to 2007 and the Walnut Tree lost its star and Terry who left the business. It then had an ill-fated appearance on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares and the business began to collapse. Shaun was given the opportunity to grab the place by the scruff at the end of that year. By 2010 the venue had regained its Michelin star and is riding a wave of popularity with both new and old diners.
Shaun says: "My wife wanted to retire from all this to do consultancy work and I did, and then this place got into trouble. I don't think it was very badly run. It was all very, difficult. And they did a very silly TV program called Kitchen Nightmares."
I ask if it's frustrating that when you search for The Walnut Tree, their appearance on Kitchen Nightmares pops up, but being more than a decade-and-a-half ago, did they wish that would disappear?
He adds: "It was for a few years because for a while it was shown in different parts of the world semi-constantly because these programmes air in America or Australia. And I'd get all these abusive emails telling me how unpleasant I was and it was nothing to do with me. It was a bad for The Walnut Tree. However, as I said this place, it's always had its core fans a short train or car journey away was my own audience from Ludlow so we managed to get it back on its feet again."
Not wanting to plunge into kitchen life full-time once again, Shaun took a while to reckon with his part-time role, but he had to ditch his consultancy work to concentrate on The Walnut Tree.
He says: "The Walnut Tree's quite a special place. I like it because it's a proper restaurant. There's big differences between an hotel restaurant and a place like this. Because a hotel has to feed people who have come for the view of the surrounding area, because they've got relatives around here, not everybody wants to eat an ambitious meal, But a restaurant needs people to come out specifically to eat. And that's why there are so few of them. In the country, and by the country. I mean, England as well as Wales. It's harder to keep going, so I quite like the ones that have made it."
Someone else who thinks The Walnut Tree is a special place, or rather, is part of the reason why it's so special, is Pauline, who's from down the road in Abergavenny and thought she wouldn't see out a week behind the bar here. That was back in 1972 and she's been here ever since. Well, other than the brief period it closed up in 2007, but it wasn't long before Shaun and co dragged her back into her rightful place behind the bar.
Pauline is a valued team member both by those at The Walnut Tree and those who have visited over the decades and have been greeted by her, some of whom have become firm friends. And while some famous faces have dined under her stewardship of front of house there's been just one who sent her all starstruck - the inimitable Miriam Margolyes.
But first, I asked her what the place was like when she started in the 1970s at the age of 21 when she thought she'd only last the week.
"The actual building is exactly the same, this bar it's been spruced up a little bit, but it's the same as it was," says Pauline, who recalls that packed-out services would see four people packed around the tiny cast-iron-legged, round tables which are synonymous with British pubs up and down the country, and if you ordered one of Franco's huge platters that had to go on the floor!
"It would be terribly busy. I thought I'd try for a week and I wouldn't last a week, but I did. I'd never done this sort of thing before but to be honest I needed the money and the wages were fabulous," said Pauline, who you get the feeling would take no nonsense but once you're a regular you couldn't imagine the place without her, so much so that when Shaun took over and reopened the place he rang her up to start back asap.
"It was something like £2.50 per night I think," Pauline continued, who mentioned it was 'absolutely heartbreaking' to see it close back in the mid-2000s.
"An old school friend was working here at the time and she said 'you'll be alright, give it a go' and things were tough. I'd been married which was a disaster and I had this baby. I told her 'I don't like people much!' But I gave it a whirl ,for £2.50 a night I had to. She talked me through the menu during the afternoons and she went off to become a nurse and left me to it and I've been here ever since."
Pauline says she's met an 'awful lot of lovely people' over her years and can't believe how time has whizzed by. I ask her who The Walnut Tree regulars are, and while she must have spoken to hundreds of them over the years, but it turns out she made an impression on them. "Last year I had my 50th-anniversary party here and a photo of me ended up on Abergavenny Voice on Facebook - I was horrified," she tells me and adds: "Having said that I had 175 messages from people who have known me over the years, it was absolutely lovely. People were saying 'I can't believe you are still there.' There was one from a boy who lived in the same street as me and he worked behind the bar, he became a journalist, but in the last days of her life he'd bring his old mum, she must have been 86, 87 then. They'd sit in the bar after they'd had their food and I'd ask her if she wanted a little tot of brandy. 'Just a little one,' she'd say. "And her son would ask her did she know who I was. After saying I was a 'nice lady who worked at the Walnut Tree' he said I was just around the corner from where they lived. 'Oo,' she said. 'I used to drink whiskey with your mother!' I told her my mother was a lady.
"'Ay she was a lady, but she loved a whiskey in the pantry with me!'," Pauline laughed, with the knowledge that she probably has a million lovely stories like that. "It's lovely though." One of her favourite moments at the Walnut Tree came last year when straight-talking, sweary, Harry Potter star, Miriam Margolyes popped in for dinner while she was at the nearby Hay Winter Festival. "I watch everything she's in," Pauline says and remembers instructing the other staff that if the star turned up to let her know and she'd be there in a flash.
"The Friday went by, nothing," she recalls, "On the Saturday lunchtime, this young lady came in and she said; 'my name is Charlotte, I have a table booked,' well behind Charlotte in came Miriam. And I said 'you've made my day!'
"'Why's that?' she asked. I told her I was halfway through her book and I couldn't wait to get back to bed to read it. She was great, exactly as she comes across on TV and we had pictures, she told me to get her the book and she's sign it, well it was by the side of the bed. Anyway, she wrote me a lovely note and it was fab."
Pauline confesses she loves it when people tell her they wonder if she's still behind the bar, but dodges the question of retirement... much like her boss, Shaun: "Every day someone asks me when I'm going to retire and I can't bare the thought of it," she says. "It's a very hard thing for me to think about at the minute.
"I don't think my job has changed over all these years. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, I'm past it now. So I just do what comes naturally."
Read our review of The Walnut Tree, here. For more food and drink stories, click here.
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