The stretch of the north Cornish coast around St Ives, jam packed with tourists in the summer months, overwinters in a quieter, more brooding slumber to emerge blinking in the springtime as fresh as meltwater streams on the moors and as keen as the prevailing onshore winds. This is a different Cornwall, an older, more introspective place where you can almost hear the pit ponies’ hooves ringing through the cobbled lanes, their slow rhythmic gait beating time along to the hammers of the long-silent tin mines. Cornwall was and remains a land apart, a wild Celtic place where sustenance has been scratched from the earth and trawled from the unforgiving seas for millennia.

In a small Atlantic-washed bay just outside the main town lies Adam Handling’s exquisite Ugly Butterfly. Pinned firmly to the beach, all weathered timber and a few modernist angles, it sits low on the horizon with wings furled against the worst of the winter gales. On the way to the main entrance, you pass the smartly appointed cabins still echoing with the babel voices of the G8 summit held here. Fear not, Mutti and Co’s political caravan is long gone leaving the bay as serene and resolutely English, or at least Cornish, as ever. You can stay in the G8 lodges if the mood takes you: they are rather lovely and come complete with a side order of pre-Brexit nostalgia.

The Ugly Butterfly’s bar is the first place you reach beyond the vast glass doors that suck you through into this gastronomic bell chamber. It has an understated opulence that doesn’t attempt to compete with the wrap-around glass and stunning sand-sea-and-stone views beyond. Genial folk, some mixologists by calling, move about the space with an unhurried professionalism that’s warm and convivial. They are cheery and welcoming, only too happy to share recommendations or whisk up something bespoke and fearfully alcoholic. I plumped for the Lost Garden – a nod perhaps to Heligan on Cornwall’s south coast? It’s described as “Kernowfornia” – brilliant – and was all sorts of Monkey-Shouldered, edible-flowered bits of delight. It did a super job of startling the taste buds into action ahead of the evening’s foodie delights.

And they were delights. The restaurant proper, whose beautifully appointed lux lies quietly just beyond the bar, is cheffy territory par excellence. Importantly, however, it never loses sight of the need for deliciousness to take centre stage. Traceability, sustainability, beautiful presentation and service yes, but all in the name of impeccably tasting food. The kitchen was in the hands of a group of young and spry chefs on the evening I visited, Adam Handling off somewhere running an empire that now extends to the Frog and its sister Eve Bar in Covent Garden and The Loch and The Tyne gastropub in Windsor (although he could of course have simply been enjoying a well-earned night off). On site or not, his presence was clearly felt in menu design, execution and general demeanour of the staff. An obsessively tight ship, but hugely fun and one that manages a certain amount of informality as well. A winning mix that a surprising number of top restaurants fail to achieve.

It’s hard to resist a tasting menu displaying this level of imagination and execution. So we didn’t. The eight-courser we chose fell loosely into two halves. First there was a succession of extraordinary small plates sitting somewhere between amuse bouches and starters. “Snacks” they called them, a name that belies their complexity and playfulness. The highlight was the obviously theatrical charms of porcelain eggshells served in a basket of dry ice and filled with a wonderful yolk emulsion of potato, truffle and chive foam. Each exploration with the tiny silver spoon revealed something new and delicious. We were cooing over our nests like a flock of broody hens by the end of it. Less showy but every bit as good were a cheese doughnut filed with Cornish Gouda and topped with shaved Tête de Moine and a crisp, creamy croustade of unctuous beef tartare. Each was impeccably drawn with as much thought given to texture as to taste.

The smaller plates having been polished off without delay, four rather more robust wooden bowls arrived containing “Roast Chicken”. One bowl was furnished with the kind of sourdough you wish you could make but can’t and two others, seemingly mounded with crispy chicken skin, hid a chicken-fat butter of immense umami depth and a deeply scented chicken liver parfait, light as a cloud but wickedly flavoursome. A slick of butter, a smear of parfait and pinch of crunchy, nubbly chicken skin on the softly yielding bread seemed destined to be the highlight of the whole meal. That is until we discovered the final bowl. It held a fairly innocuous looking dark brown gravy. And it was definitely a gravy – neither sauce nor jus, it was the very antithesis of a foam or velouté. This was the essence of chicken gravy, simultaneously elevated to its Platonic Form and reduced down to a singularity of truly irresistible force. Transformed by some arcane alchemy into the quintessence of caramelised birdiness it produced a truly Proustian moment, pulling you back to the Sunday lunches of your youth and propelling you forward with the clinical skill of the modern fine-dining kitchen all at once. Dizzying.

Punch drunk from all this flavourful hyperbole, the main courses passed by in a blur of accomplished cooking warmed with a regular blast from the creative furnace. Sweet Cornish crab meat was presented in a little nori tartlet seasoned with horseradish and the crunch of fresh apple. It came nestling in an upturned crab shell filled with the beach’s pebbly boon: simple and striking. A beautifully plump piece of halibut then arrived, perfectly pearlescent and firm, blanketed by a classic cream sauce spiked with shrimps and flecked green with fish-friendly herbs. It was accompanied by a glowing roucher of carrot purée whose sweetness complimented the salty seafood marvellously. The main course was a perfectly cooked and rested roundel of venison with what a lesser chef might have been tempted to call “textures of parsnip”. They don’t bother with such tomfoolery round here; this was simply “parsnip” (in fact a silky parsnip purée, parsnip crisps and a honeyed caramelised root, to boot). The sauce was exactly the right consistency – good body but not overly rich or demanding. It was also quite the shiniest of sauces I’ve seen for some time, rather a lost art with the current obsession with modish emulsions and spritzes.

Puddings were an exciting rollercoaster of deconstructed shortbread, light and airy sponges, quenelles of sweet cicely sorbet and white chocolate foams, each matching sweetness with intriguing savoury notes. If you go some time soon, you’ll get Adam’s Food Fight, the pudding he took to the Great British Menu banquet. It comes complete with burnt-butter cake – words to fill any gourmand with joy. By the time the petits fours arrived we were replete and groaning. Somehow the promise of smoked Cornish cream fudge, crisp dark-chocolate shells with cherry and a rather fab pear jelly managed to rally us. If only briefly.

Special mention should go to the sommelier. I didn’t catch her name, which is my fault. She served the wine with an assured hand that comes from deep knowledge, enduring fascination with the subject and consummate hosting skills (innate and learnt). There is an exceptionally well-chosen wine flight if such is your bent, each served at the perfect temperature and chosen with a good eye and intelligent palate to enhance, but never overpower, the food. It ranges from exceptional white Burgundys to intriguing Greek reds and felt, despite its hefty price tag, good value.

A peak at the wine list however may be enough to tempt you off-piste. It’s set out thematically, which can be irritating but does a good job here of directing the eye, palate and wallet. “Quintessential” is indeed just that, familiar but not thereby to be ignored. Current US regional darlings Paso Robles and Santa Barabara answer the call and in the under £50 bracket you can snaffle a lovely Burgenland Welschriesling from Andres Gsellmann or a Zwiegelt again from Austria. There’s good hunting to be had on an “Adventure” too, which might take you off to Hárslevelű and Furmint territory or to Switzerland for Fendant/Chasselas. It’s good to see some of the more up-and-coming regions, as well: Washington State (hardly novel now but worth exploring if you haven’t) and Uruguay.

I was very excited to see something from Washinton State’s Cayuse Winery (a Tempranillo) but as it came to more than the price of the tasting menu I left it sleeping in the cellar for some other lucky soul to discover. Oh and there’s a Grenache from Sine Qua Non knocking about if you have pockets deep enough for Californian royalty. Turn the page to “Opulence” and it’s a roll call of Burgundy, studded with the odd jewel from the Rhône and Italy’s chicer outposts and the “Supernovas”, largely Bordeauxs. There’s a nice section of Stickies to finish, most available by the glass.

You can also choose from a formidable array of whiskies which, all to the credit of the Dundee-born chef, makes the odd gesture beyond Scotland’s shores (the US, Japan, Ireland). It’s a move I applaud as someone who finds Irish whiskey a more soothing digestif than scotch (I can hear my Scottish ancestors rattling their chains at the very idea). There are some local beers and ciders to be had too: again, a nice touch.

What an extraordinary place I thought, as we wandered the Camomile-lawn nostalgia of the costal path back to our little rental. Formidably expensive, certainly, but the quality of ingredients, the skills with which they were handled, presented and served, together with the setting, made it feel appropriate. Despite a little hyperventilating in the toilet over the bill, we left trailing a plume of bonhomie and promises to return soon.