Wales' seven Michelin starred restaurants have retained their stars for another year as last week saw the Michelin Guide 2023 revealed. A coveted star is an ultimate dream achievement for many chefs who are doing incredible things in their career.
Obtaining a star or two indicates that everything from the dishes to the service to the experience will be utterly exceptional if you're lucky enough to bag a table at one of these places. This year also saw a third restaurant in Wales be awarded with the prestigious Bib Gourmand Michelin award, which goes to restaurants whose service and food is not only commended but the value of money too. It was recognised as serving "good food at moderate prices".
But how much does it cost to eat at these fine dining restaurants which time and again impress the Michelin inspectors and, more importantly, what's on the menu? From Ynyshir in Machynlleth, which last year became the first restaurant in Wales to have two Michelin stars - and this year retained them - to Nathan Davies' (Ynyshir alum) SY23 in Aberystwyth and Home in Penarth, we've taken a deep dive into what's on offer at our seven celebrated restaurants just in case you fancy treating yourself to a meal that promises to be well worth the money – just make sure you book well in advance of any special occasion.
Read more: The full list of restaurants in Wales with a Michelin star in 2023
SY23
This divine restaurant in Aberystwyth focuses its 10-course tasting menu on locally sourced meat and fish cooked over charcoal.
The restaurant has been open since 2019 and is co-owned by Nathan Davies, who won rave reviews from the judges on BBC Two show Great British Menu in February 2022 causing his website to crash and was previously head chef at the two Michelin starred restaurant Ynyshir. It also was crowned Opening of the Year by the Michelin Guide when it opened.
Fluent in Welsh, Nathan is creating dishes using local Welsh ingredients which includes fermented, foraged, and pickled ingredients. Included in the menu is scallop with seaweed and burnt butter, turbot with cockles and broccoli, and lamb with black garlic and shallot.
Desserts include yuzu with meringue, pear with cultured cream and wood sorrel and chocolate with burnt butter
The menu at SY23 will set you back £130 per person with the option of having an extra course of Pen Helyg cheese, cauliflower and Welsh autumn truffle for an added cost of £15.
If a ten-course meal isn't quite your thing, you can dine in The Courtyard at SY23's for drink and sharing tables plates which include items such as fish/shellfish such as squid with garlic and chilli, salmon with wasabi and fennel for £10. Meat like ox cheek with shallot and potato is also £10 while vegetable dishes, such as mushroom with rice and miso, are £7 and desserts are £8.
It also does a Sunday roast, prices for which start at £17 - for one course. For three, it's £24.
There are set timings for the daytime and evening tasting meals. At lunch, you will start at 1pm with the bar open to guests from 12:30pm. For the evening, you can take a drink in the downstairs bar from 6.30pm before heading upstairs to the intimate dining room where an open kitchen shows the charcoal grill. The 10-course tasting menu is then served at 7.30pm.
You can read more about Nathan Davies, SY23's head chef here.
Ynyshir
The first Welsh restaurant to last year achieve two Michelin stars - and keep them this year - Ynyshir in the Dyfi Estuary specialises in meat-focused cooking with huge flavours.
Ynyshir, whose accolades also include five AA rosettes, is run by English chef Gareth Ward and his partner Amelia Eiriksson who have owned the business since 2013 and offer a huge menu of 30 meat and fish dishes.
Using a fire to cook the majority of their dishes, Gareth cooks by his mantra of "ingredient-led, flavour-driven, fat-fuelled and protein-obsessed” with the menu having a massive focus on aged meat - his wagyu beef is dried for 300 days in a Himalayan salt chamber.
He also uses preserved local ingredients and is vastly inspired by Asian flavours with the use of Thai green curry (with shrimp), katsu curry and sweet chilli with scampi on the menu. Gareth reveals very little about his menu - only the star of the dish - however with 30 dishes to taste and enjoy the surprise adds to the excitement.
Dietary requirements, dislikes, allergies, and substitutions are not offered at Ynyshir to add to the unique experience.
Beef is served as a burger, a rump cap with black bean sauce, and shabu-shabu with sirloin, black cod is served miso cured or salted with smoked butter and parsley and desserts include tiramisu and bramley apples with duck custard.
There are two different experiences to enjoy Ynyshir, the pass bench and dinner in the restaurant. At the pass bench you are right in the action chatting to Gareth as he creates your food.
In the main restaurant, dinner with an experience starts at 5pm.
The motto of Ynyshir “fun dine, not fine dine” is clear as they have an in-house DJ, flashing lights, smoke and no dress code - you just wear what you feel comfortable in.
Ynyshir is priced at £350 per person and there are also options to stay overnight with dinner and a room costing £495. You can read more about Ynyshir here. To learn more about Gareth Ward, check out our interview with him here.
Home by James Sommerin
Also retaining its Michelin star in 2023 is the Penarth restaurant Home by James Sommerin. Hidden behind blacked-out windows to keep a mystery element about what it is like inside, James' restaurant aims to make guests feel comfortable and relaxed as soon as they walk through the door - just like home - and is run by small family-driven team.
The kitchen is headed up by James and his daughter Georgia, his wife Lou is in charge of admin while his daughters Angharad, Elin and sister-in-law Cath are front of house.
The menu is a surprise menu, with no details revealed online, however it promises to be different on every visit as the menu changes with the seasons, meaning there is lots to try throughout the year.
Eight courses cost £120 per person and four courses, available for lunch on Fridays and Saturdays, are £60 per person.
The Walnut Tree
The famous inn and restaurant The Walnut Tree has been in Llanddewi Skirrid in Abergavenny since the 1960s has had a Michelin star since 2010.
Shaun Hill is the head chef and he focuses on simple, contemporary food that is rooted in culinary tradition and uses seasonal ingredients.
Serving bold but simple French food, that also takes inspiration from across the globe, the menus are created around the food that Shaun enjoys.
Included on the set lunch menu are rabbit, pistachio and prune pate with a celeriac remoulade, hake with shrimp fishcake and a watercress and tartare sauce, and baked vanilla cheesecake with raspberry ice cream.
The dinner menu is priced individually with prices ranging from £18 for twice baked Lancashire bomb cheese souffle with Welsh black truffle and monkfish with octopus rasam to £38 for a spiced rack of lamb with samosa, sweetbread, potato and spinach curry.
Changing every day, due to what ingredients are available, the menus have a wide and impressive range of options from seabass with mussels and clams to spring vegetables with broad bean hummus to roasted beetroots with drill and creme fraiche for a side. The desserts for dinner are priced at £12 and include items such as Paris-Brest with chocolate ice cream and rhubarb parfait with orange creme anglaise and baked rhubarb.
The set lunch menu is priced at two courses for £40 and three courses for £45 and dietary and allergy issues can be addressed when booking. Some dishes on the menu can also be made smaller for 'junior diners' - those under the age of twelve.
Sosban and the Old Butchers
Found in Menai Bridge in Anglesey, Sosban and the Old Butchers have a big element of history around their menu and dishes and obtained its first Michelin star in 2016 - one head chef Stephen Stevens has held on to ever since.
Stephen singlehandedly cooks the dishes served up in the old butcher's shop-come-restaurant- and previously worked in Gordon Ramsay's three-Michelin starred Royal Hospital road restaurant in London before taking on his own in 2013. You can read more about him here.
Sosban and the Old Butchers, which also has four AA rosettes and is decorated with Welsh slate, sheepskin-covered chairs and hand-painted animal tiles (a nod to its butchery days), holds a dining experience that is "a little different to most". It creates its dishes and menus on the day, using the locally sourced ingredients and produce available to them, meaning there is no sneak peek at the menu available.
Dinner is served on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings between 7pm and 11pm and is priced at £175 per person.
Beach House
Another unique building whose dining experience is top class is the Beach House in Gower which is in a former coal store and run by Hywel Griffith who celebrates local Welsh produce.
The Beach House has panoramic views over the stunning Oxwich Bay, and offers five different menus with a variety of courses - ranging from three to eight and specific vegetarian menus - meaning there is plenty of choice.
It is open Wednesdays to Saturdays for lunch and dinner and on Sundays for lunch. The three-course menu is set at £84 includes Shellfish raviolo as a starter, roast Margam fallow deer loin as a main, and Bara brith souffle as dessert.
There is a six-course tasting menu for £100 and this includes crab, fallow deer and a rhubarb and cardamon dessert and its eight-course tasting menu that is £116 per person includes pigs cheek, halibut, raviolo and Soufflé.
For vegetarians there is a six-course and eight course menu that features aubergine, celeriac and cauliflower dishes as well as a dark chocolate dessert. The six course vegetarian menu costs £100 while the eight-course taster is priced at £116 with the addition of broccoli and raviolo.
The menus, like many other Michelin-star contenders on this list, change with the season so as to keep all produce fresh and is described as "sophisticated" and "classically based". The restaurant aims to create a relaxed atmosphere providing high professional standards. Being a Welsh speaker, menus are written in both Welsh and English.
The Whitebrook
Using freshly foraged herbs and sea vegetables The Whitebrook, in Monmouthshire is run by Chris Harrod, a former Great British Menu banquet winner, and his wife Kirsty.
The majority of the ingredients used by Chris are within a 12-mile radius and includes herbs such as Pennywort, Three Cornered Garlic, Bitter cress, Wild onion, Hogweed, Lesser Celandine as well as meat, vegetables and other produce from the likes of Ross-on-Wye, the Wye Valley, Brecon Beacons and Pershore.
The Whitebrook has a cosy and intimate restaurant, which has four AA rosettes, and aims to provide customers with a "truly memorable dining experience" with its many menus available.
Ranging from a three-course set menu priced at £49 (at the time of writing) and a five-course lunch menu priced at £68 to its dinner menu priced at £110 and a vegetarian menu (also £110) dishes include asparagus from the Wye Valley and Huntsham Farm Ryland Hogget.
The restaurant is open from Thursday and Sunday and the three-set course menu includes Cornish day boat cod, Meadowsweet cured mackerel and and poached pear.
On the dinner menu you'll find items such as fiesole artichokes, raw Orkney scallop and wild fallow venison alongisde a sweet cicely, dandelion honey and elderflower dessert. As for the vegetarian menu, you can expect to tuck in to dishes like fermented swede, heritage carrote, mugwort beets and truffle baked parsnip as well as Wye Valley Rhubarb.
You can read our review of The Whitebrook here.
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