The drive would be enough. Turning into Low Wath Road from Pateley Bridge you enter another world. This is Nidderdale, with mile after unhurried mile of lush pastures, soaring hills and unspoiled hamlets.

Gouthwaite reservoir comes into view. Breathtakingly beautiful, a gust ripples its water. Geese scatter but the ducks seem unperturbed.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, you arrive at Ramsgill, the sort of village that location managers coo over.

And pride of place on the green is The Yorke Arms.

Listed in The Good Food Guide’s top 50 restaurants in country it is also one of Yorkshire’s six with a Michelin Star.

Which is down to co-owner and chef Frances Atkins, a fellow of the Masterchefs of Great Britain, and one of only six female Michelin starred chefs in the country.

She has held her star continuously since 2003; something that bears testament to her unique approach.

“The backbone of my food is well cooked classical food. I don’t do water baths, I cook food as I understand it should be cooked. For me it’s about texture, flavour and colour, which might sound old hat to many chefs, but it’s the way I cook and it stimulates me.”

Frances also has a no-nonsense confidence and the most fascinating thing about her is an innate ability to thinks of things few would dare put into practice.

Take chick pea with liquorice or hare with black pudding barley and pear. You really have to be sure of yourself, or this sort of experiment could spell disaster. Here it never happens.

Not that the food is pretentious. Far from it.

“We don’t break the ground rules, but there is something different to my food without being silly. That’s the fine line.

“Silliness is just bad cooking and disrespectful to the food. I always teach my chefs to respect the food. If you do that with every ingredient you won’t go far wrong.”

It’s hard to believe but Frances is entirely self-taught. However, she has proved a good teacher for herself and has an impressive knowledge of classic techniques together with a stunning ability to present her exquisite food to its best.

“If I go out for dinner, I don’t want to eat something that looks boring or feels boring I want it to be exciting, stimulating and pleasurable. I’m not looking for the wow factor; I just strive to make a dish that when someone has eaten it they say it was superb.”

Everyone sources locally these days, but Frances goes one better, using fresh, organic, produce from her kitchen garden, meat from nearby farms and game from the moors on the horizon.

“The key is sourcing the best ingredients, not just because it’s local. But in these parts I don’t have that problem do I?

Indeed not, even her wild garlic grows by the phone box across from the green.

The Yorke Arms is a perfect compliment to France’s food. A historic 18th century coaching house and shooting lodge, its cosy panelled drawing room has welcomed many a traveller over the years with its warm flickering flames.

Light floods into the heavily beamed dining room. At one end an oak dresser is adorned by pewter at the other a roaring fire. Crisp white serviettes and sparkling glass sit on antique country tables. The seagrass carpet sprinkled with bright Persian runners.

The Yorke Arms is not a hotel but a restaurant with well-appointed contemporary or traditional rooms including the new courtyard rooms. Like Frances’s cooking, they are traditional but with an element of surprise.

She says was destined to be a chef since, as a little girl, she turned her mother’s front garden into a café.

“I used to charge people for my cooking until my mother told me to give the money back.”

Now as a Michelin star chef, people are more than happy to pay for the privilege of sampling Frances Atkins’ amazing food.

Yorke Arms, Ramsgill-in-Nidderdale, Pateley Bridge, HG3 5RL, 01423 755243, info@yorke-arms.co.uk