My first experience of eating in this building nearly 10 years ago was so ghastly that the resulting trauma fell only slightly short of bed-wetting. Four friends from academia were attempting to run their first restaurant and the service was just that bit more laughably inept than the food.

It closed, as sadly it was destined to do, and was taken over in due course by Simon Moyle who turned it into a bar and restaurant. He at least achieved a degree of consistency in his opening days: the food, from chefs who displayed the mediocrity of the merely well-meaning, proved as gloomy as the decor. Great bar, though.

That area remains popular, a magnet for the rich variety of creative souls who are attracted to this handsome village of a town. And Mr Moyle, built along the lines of a clog factory, still exerts a benign but imposing presence there.

Now there's encouraging news about the restaurant. Two chefs have arrived bringing more pedigree than a tin of dog food. Less encouraging is the statement that they plan "West End contemporary-style cooking with local, fresh ingredients".

The head chef is Nicholas Wilson, who comes with the reflected stardust of pin-up chef Jean-Christophe Novelli. Wilson was sous chef at the one-star Michelin Maison Novelli and head chef at the one-star Les Saveurs in Mayfair.

More recently he had been cooking at The Walnut Club in Hathersage where by remarkable coincidence, his style was described as "West End contemporary cooking meets Peak District organic lifestyle".

His sous chef, Graham Mitchell, has come from Winteringham Fields in North Lincolnshire. So luxury ingredients, sky-high prices and hushed silence, then? Au contraire, as Del would say. The cooking has shot up in quality but the prices haven't yet joined it. True, your wallet will feel the ambition of a starter of pan-roasted diver-caught scallops with butternut squash purée, roasted hazelnuts and truffle oil with a micro-greens salad, at £9.50. But, for the moment at least, the top-price main course is the crispy duck sausage (with diver-caught scallops, broccoli and oyster sauce and celeriac purée) at £17.95.

For those wilting under recessionary pressures, the £4.75 starter "vegetable Scotch egg" (discuss) and the £9.50 main-course "pan-fried terrine" (also discuss) of artichokes and beaufort cheese with walnut dressing should
bring some relief.

So starry chefs, sensible prices. Can the formula work? Well, yes, and very well on this Friday night. There's still a hint of West End in items like wasabi emulsion and stem ginger foam. And are "Basil Pearls" and "Basil Farce" ingredients or a drag act? So hard to know in this town.

But that is small criticism set aside the general standard of the restaurant. It still looks quirky – Victorian gothic meets industrial chic – but the tables are immaculately dressed and the glassware is first-rate. The service from young women is courteous and informed and the buzz is enhanced by the contributions from the impressive Powder Jazz duo crooning classics in one corner. The food when it arrives looks dazzling. If the colourful mosaic of the rabbit and vegetable patch terrine isn't the prettiest dish in town, I can't think what is. It's light, fresh and, unfortunately lacking enough salt to bring out all its subtlety. But there is evidence here of class from its deft knifework to the saffron and olive oil dressing.

Alongside starters of quail consommé and gazpachio terrine (three terrines on one menu?) is a salad of sesame-crusted sashimi tuna. The menu description goes on to add "with feta cheese and watermelon with pickled enoki mushrooms and a wasabi emulsion" and you wonder if those are not a few flavours too far. Yet here is another accomplished dish: fabulous tuna that's given point and counterpoint by its friends on the plate. There's a stab of heat from the wasabi, an acid edge from the feta and a pucker of pickle that's calmed by the melon. Terrific.

There's a dash of excitement to this cooking that's maintained across the courses. So the duck sausage turns out to be pliant, shredded duck meat stuffed into a (fairly large) cylinder made from the crisp skin. It's hard to justify the presence of a large scallop on the plate, even as agreeably vanilla-seared as this, but the celeriac is a lovely addition. Elsewhere among mains there are one or two lexicographical puzzles. Anyone for "oven roasted Hokaido squash purée beetroot fondant"?

And, in terms of wordage, steamed fillet of halibut with a ravioli of crab, buttered asparagus and a cured salmon apple and cucumber salsa with stem ginger foam looks on the generous side. Once again, though, the story is of fine technique informed by a keen sense for flavour balance. Halibut effortlessly overcooks to dryness, but this was soft and pearlescent. Its meatiness needs contrast and receives it in the salsa and the melting crab pasta.

Mains also include organic salmon with a pine nut crust; lamb cutlets topped with sweetbread mousse; and herb-roasted saddle of rabbit wrapped in air-dried ham with a confit leg and a stew of butter beans, and I want it now. Puddings include a splendid dish called simply, apple. It brings a miniature apple tatin, Granny Smith crème brulée and an organic cider sorbet and at £5.95 it's another bargain. A more bracing experience is provided by another dish that, in every respect, is a mouthful: "Exotic pineapple and chilli shooter mango tart fine, frozen yoghurt and caramelised banana." Friends, Romans, prepare to drool.

Factor in a bright, well annotated wine list, that would benefit from more by-the-glass choice, and an amiable, laid-back-till-almost-horizontal atmosphere, and Hebden Bridge must be counting its luck.


Moyles Hotel, Restaurant and Bar, 6-10 New Road, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire HX7 8AD. 01422 845272. Fax: 01422 847663. www.moyles.com Street parking, accommodation.