Hotel dreamtime down in Kent

A friend of mine said to me the other day that I should go to a hotel no one has ever heard of. Someone had told him of a place in Faversham that was very good and served organic food. Faversham? My heart sank. I had driven through Faversham once and found it to be a dreary, modern town with no sign of a decent hotel. However, I'm prepared to try anything once.

Arriving at Faversham station, I asked a taxi driver to take me to Read's. We jolted down an uneven road and, after five minutes or so, turned off into a gravel drive. Ahead was a perfect Georgian house standing in manicured grounds. I was greeted at the door by the owner, Rona Pritchard. "This is your home for the weekend," she assured me. "We'll take very good care of you."

If this sounded like a television advert, it differed in that it turned out to be true. Rona carried my bags up to one of the hotel's six rooms. For £99 a night, I had never seen such unabashed luxury. The decor was Nina Campbell-style, and the American-sized double bed was so beautifully draped that one envisaged sleeping under angels' wings.

The tables were decorated with orchids and a complimentary bottle of champagne sat in a silver ice bucket. There was no mini bar but this was more than compensated for by a pantry in the corridor stocked with an astonishing variety of soft and alcoholic drinks. "Just help yourself whenever you want," said Rona. "Only write down what you've taken in the book."

There must be a catch. Evidently it lay in the bathroom, but even to a bathroom obsessive such as myself, it was pristine perfection. After a tuberose-scented soak, I wandered down to the drawing room for drinks. Again, I was made to feel as if I was in my own house. In this pastel-decorated room, a mahogany bar stood in one corner from which, as in the pantry, one could help oneself. The house champagne turned out to be Pol Roger and, at under £7 a glass, not at all unreasonable.

Rona brought me the wine list and the menu. There were the usual mark-ups - a Chateaux Lynch-Bages 1982 cost £250 - but on the whole the prices were not much more than in off-licences. I was a bit wary of the menu. To me, organic food conjures up images of misshapen vegetables and people in sandals stuffing themselves with pulses.

But Rona and her husband David, who supervised the cooking, had taken a potential sow's purse and turned it into silk. My smoked eel, between layers of buttered potatoes, was a masterpiece of taste combination. The Kentish lamb was pink, the way I like it, and melted in the mouth.

My pudding of raspberries layered between caramelised puff pastry put me in mind of something the 18th century wit Sidney Smith once said. Asked for his idea of paradise, he replied: "Eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets." I can now affirm that my idea of celestial bliss is eating Rona's raspberries and pastry to the murmur of contented voices.

The restaurant was full, the clientele consisting of every age group and all delighting in the cuisine. Most of the guests had dressed up for the occasion too, which is a compliment to a restaurant. In my jeans and white shirt, I rather felt I had let down the food.

Smoking was allowed everywhere-I recalled that in my room was a half-finished bottle of champagne and decided to retire with it and a cigarette before I was tempted by the selection of British cheeses. While I had been eating, my bed had been turned down to reveal woven linen sheets.

I kept pinching myself, convinced that this was a dream and I would wake up to a breakfast as disgusting as a wet corpse floating in the Thames. Breakfast, however, lived up to dinner. The orange juice was fresh and the pastries warm, with that Continental texture the English find so hard to master. Espressos were no problem, either.

As I left, Rona came to say goodbye. It is unusual to find such a gem of a hotel in the English countryside and even more so in a place such as Faversham. But a gem it was. When I returned to London, I bought the new Michelin Guide, to find that Read's has been included in the book, and its restaurant awarded a star. Go now before there is standing room only.

Read's Hotel (01795 535344), Canterbury Road, Faversham, Kent. Six double rooms; £99 per person including dinner and B&B.