Matt Weedon’s cooking graces an aristocratic country setting in the Cotswolds, finds Food Critic Richard McComb.

Matt Weedon is not a chef prone to introspection, but he is puzzled.

He says there has been a mixed reaction to his protein-packed starter of scallops, spring lamb and caramelised sweetbreads. A couple of diners at Lords of the Manor have remarked that the dish lacks flavour. They must be bonkers.

It is the morning after the night before, during which I enjoyed a four-course dinner cooked by Weedon. We are splitting the contents of a silver coffee pot in one of the lounges in this lovely Cotswold country house hotel. A rather large bird is cooing and rustling at the window and a beetle the size of a small domestic dog is taking a leisurely stroll over the thick carpet.

“Bloody hell, look at the size of that!” says Weedon. “That’ll end up in the pot if it’s not quick.”

The 36-year-old head chef can work wonders with most raw ingredients but I think even he might struggle with insect life.

The aforementioned shellfish and lamb appetiser proved to be a memorable start to a memorable dinner and I’m stunned when Weedon tells me there has been the odd dissenter.

The belly of lamb couldn’t have packed more belly of lamb lambiness, slow cooked and oozing apart. The standout for me, though, was the tomato “fondu.”

Yes, tomato. You can tell a lot about a chef by the way he treats his toms. Biology apart (something to do with seeds, I think), I’ve always struggled to think of a tomato as a fruit. Not any more. I could spread Weedon’s fondu on lightly toasted bread and be a very happy chap.

I can’t then understand the comments about an alleged lack of depth with the scallop and lamb dish.

Weedon says: “For me, there will never be a lack of flavour with my food because we take the best ingredients, treat them simply and let them do the talking.”

It’s a principle many aspiring chefs would do well to heed, although Weedon is slightly under-selling what he does. Take another starter – fillet of sea trout with crayfish tails, pike mousse, broad beans, crayfish and trout nage and chervil. Give me those ingredients and I’d be lucky if the cat took a sniff at the final dish.

Like many chefs, Weedon, whose wife Rachel is the restaurant manager, did not excel at school, leaving his studies behind at the age of 16. Thanks to his mother, Jenny, he got a job “at the bottom of the pile” at Pendley Manor in Hertfordshire, starting an association with country house dining which has continued to this day.

There have been stints at Hambleton Hall in Rutland, Seaham Hall in Country Durham and Glennap Castle Hotel in Ayrshire, Scotland, where he won “in his own right” the first of his Michelin stars – an accolade he maintains today at Lords of the Manor in Upper Slaughter.

He has worked for John Burton Race, who he describes as a “genius, a bloody good cook,” and Alan Murchison, whose restaurants include La Becasse in Ludlow.

Weedon has unquestionably put in the hours and describes his culinary mentors as having come from Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons style of cooking. “It’s the lighter side of French cooking,” he says.

“Everyone I have worked for has come from Le Manoir. There are reduction sauces but they are quite light. It is all about flavour.”

Do not confuse light with insubstantial. My main course the previous evening featured Cotswold longhorn beef, braised ox cheek, Hereford snails (juicy not chewy ), cep confit, pommes Anna and a red wine sauce.

Weedon is enthusiastic about the produce he can source on his doorstep, including Kelmscott pork and Lighthorne lamb, from over the border in Warwickshire. Foragers turn up at the kitchen door with wild garlic, wood sorrel and sea buckthorn.

The commitment to using the best of the abundant local produce extends to the butters, oils and flours used in the kitchen and the restaurant’s fine cheese board, which is unmissable, although I would advise a light lunch if you are dining in the evening. There is May Hill Green, covered in chopped nettle, made from cows’ milk in Dymock, Gloucs, and Simon Weaver’s brie-style cheeses, made from the milk of a herd of organic Fresians just a mile away. The entirely British-sourced cheese includes the wickedly pungent Saval from Wales and the grainy hard ewe’s milk cheese Lord of the Hundreds, from East Sussex.

I love cheese but don’t often indulge when dining out as I worry about being floored before desserts. So when a pre-dessert preceded my pudding proper I feared I might have to run up the white flag. Fortunately, Weedon’s clever take on classic rhubarb and custard, featuring a magic sugar sphere of wild strawberries, was true to his culinary mission – lovely and light.

A magic box of chocolates was presented with coffee – as well as macaroons and wafer-thin “croquants.” Dinner here is grand indeed.

I last ate at Lords of the Manor a few years ago. Weedon was the chef then, with a star, but the food has progressed and is stamped with his growing confidence.