Wined, dined and rested.

Batcombe is a picture postcard village in deepest (and most fashionable) Somerset, not far from Bruton and Castle Cary (and at this very moment within a decibel’s reach of the thumping background provided by the Glastonbury music festival). It’s in the midst of those achingly pretty little hills and valleys that are a speciality of some parts of the county. And in this little village, right next to the church, there is a pub called the Three Horseshoes.

It has always been a favourite place but in recent years its fortunes have gone up and down – more recently it’s been more down than up. In fact it was closed for a couple of years and has only just re-opened. And now it really means business.

Despite some doubts about whether the refurbishment of this lovely serene old building would be dealt with sympathetically (after all, it has now turned into a high-profile establishment and is written about in all the finest places – more of that later) it has in fact been done beautifully, with full respect given to its roots. It is still a Somerset pub but now they have created a connection between what used to be a side dining room into which you didn’t really want to be put and the main bar area. The bar itself has been replaced with a quietly stunning wooden structure, completely in keeping with the building while also adding to the new feeling of light and space which pervades everything.

The great inglenook beam is still there, quietly presiding over everything like a benevolent great uncle, but instead of the open fire there’s now a woodburner and a clear view through to the adjoining room ….

The outside area has been completely transformed; instead of a small and rather claustrophobic scrap of lawn some sheds have been removed and a stone Provence-style terrace has been created, with huge linen parasols, and a large lawn on a higher level.

So on the one side you have the spire of St Mary the Virgin looking down on the perfect English country pub garden, and from the other the view of the little terraces and intriguing staircases just kept reminding me of Crillon le Brave, that stupendously restored hilltop village at the foot of Mont Ventoux with its stone alleyways and steps taking you into intriguing shady corners.

I suppose for the smart London set that will make the pilgrimage here the cultural reference will be more Tuscany than Provence, but the soothing trompe l’oeuil effect is the same.

And the food? Oh yes, it’s a hit. We opted for fish soup as a starter; I can never resist fish soup, even though I’m usually disappointed unless I’m actually sitting in a little restaurant in Avignon or Nice. Well guess what, I took a spoonful of fish soup (complete with a proper rouille) sitting on the terrace of the Three Horseshoes at Batcombe, Somerset and if I closed my eyes I could have been in a little restaurant in Avignon or Nice. Oh that deep, rich fishy explosion in the mouth….

After that one of us had the superb turbot with lentils and aïoli, the fish having been stopped in its cooking at exactly the right moment and the authentic aïoli…. well, there’s Provence again so perhaps the smart London Tuscany set are wrong……

and the rest of us had rainbow, feta and pine nut tart, also delicious and with that delightful texture contrast you always get with a good filo pastry pie.

We had chosen a Picpoul de Pinet as our wine, and it was a particularly nice one;

since Picpoul started becoming more common in the UK it seems to have become sharper than I remember it being when we buy it in Florensac, but this one took me back to the smooth and fruity ones that my memory tells me they used to be. It appears on the menu as St John Picpoul de Pinet, presumably because it was chosen originally for that fine London restaurant (St John) owned by the husband of the chef here, Margot Henderson OBE.

Which brings us neatly on to why the Three Horseshoes at Batcombe has become a high-profile establishment. Locally we had heard that the place was being refurbished by “a famous London chef”, the aforementioned Margot Henderson. That sent both a ripple of excitement and also a tiny frisson of dread to us, the horny-handed sons and daughters of soil sitting here in our Somerset backwater wearing our smocks and chewing on pieces of straw saying “oooh arrrgh” to each other across the cow pats. (An entirely erroneous picture, actually – we are SO sophisticated now with the Newt in Somerset near Castle Cary and Hauser & Wirth in Bruton. What is it they call this area now? “Somerset’s Notting Hill”)

However, be reassured – yes the menu is reassuringly short, yes the cooking is superb, yes everything about the refurbishment is lovely, and yes it also still feels like a pub. What we used to call a gastro pub, perhaps, but the “pop in for a pint” part of the place has been lovingly retained and it will be so cosy in the winter. This is absolutely not a gastronomic palace of foam and smoke, it is far more down to earth than that but with the advantage of refined food beautifully executed.