As an antidote to the heavy rain outside, the sight of the couple behind the bar at the recently reopened Walnut Tree Inn, outside Abergavenny in south Wales, could not have been more heart-warming: a waitress and a chef who between them have more than 75 years’ experience in the restaurant business, yet have only been working together for the past three weeks.

Pauline McKay started here in 1972, nine years after Franco and Ann Taruschio opened one of the most idiosyncratic of eating establishments. (They sold it in 2001.) While McKay and her colleagues supplied the Welsh hospitality, Franco cooked the Italian food of his beloved Marche region as well as the definitive rendition of many local dishes. Ann provided the no-nonsense management.