Shaun Hill
Chef
The Walnut Tree

Acclaimed chef Shaun Hill began his career in the restaurant industry in 1967 at the ‘Carriers Restaurant’ in Islington. He then moved to ‘The Gay Hussar’ in Soho and then ‘The InterContinental Hotel’ on Hyde Park Corner. More recently, Hill worked at the prestigious ‘Gidleigh Park’ from 1985-1994. The ‘Merchant House’ in Ludlow was a joint venture for Hill and his wife Anja between the years of 1994-2005. With Shaun cooking and Anja serving, the ‘Merchant House’ restaurant aimed to provide an eclectic mix of dishes based on their personal tastes, using sound cooking techniques.

Hill has sought to continue this premise in his current position at ‘The Walnut Tree’, near Abergavenny, where he has been since 2007. After the retirement of Franco Taruschio, the chef who made ‘The Walnut Tree’ famous, the restaurant had faltered under new ownership and closed in 2007. Now, the reopening of ‘The Walnut Tree’ restaurant under Hill and his partner, local hotelier William Griffiths, has prompted an overwhelmingly positive response, with Matthew Norman of ‘The Guardian’ calling it “a blissful and fecund union between sheer talent and lack of pretension” and Xanthe Clay at ‘The Telegraph’ referring to Hill as “one of the country's finest chefs” after visiting. The easy informality of ‘The Walnut Tree’ is the perfect setting for its core of excellent ingredients, which are chosen carefully and are local where possible. Thus far, AA has awarded ‘The Walnut Tree’ 3 rosettes and named it ‘Restaurant of the Year: Wales’ in 2008-2009, an accolade echoed by the Harden’s UK Restaurant Guide with its allocation of the Rémy Martin Restaurant Award to the restaurant in 2008. In the same year, Walnut Tree was awarded the BMW Square Meal Award for ‘Best UK Restaurant’.

Throughout his career, Shaun Hill has had his talent awarded. In 1993, he received the Egon Ronay Guide award for ‘Chef of the Year’ and the ‘Caterer & Hotelkeeper Chef Award’. A Catey for ‘Independent Restaurateur of the Year’ followed in 2001. In 2003, Hill was awarded the AA Restaurant Guide Chefs’ Chef Award for 2003 and in 2004 the ‘Wine List of the Year’ award. Most recently, he picked up the ‘Advantage West Midlands Entrepreneur’ award from the ‘Midlander of the Year’ awards. Aside from cooking, Hill is a Research Fellow in the Department of Classics at Exeter University and has had numerous books published.