I was pretty excited about the prospect of eating 10 courses at one of the most exciting restaurants in Britain this year. So excited in fact that I completely overlooked that I'd booked a table for one and the reality of what that entailed: dining in solitary silence.
Annwn, in deepest darkest Pembrokeshire, has only been open 12 months but already it's made waves in the foodie world and recently listed 14th in The Good Food Guide's top 20 for 2022, which is a big deal. It's in esteemed company too with just two other Welsh restaurants making the top 20 "most exciting restaurants" in Britain: Ynyshir, near Machynlleth, and Aberystwyth's SY23. Both of these have Michelin stars to their name, so chef Matt Powell is riding a wave. I ate at SY23 when it picked up its first Michelin star earlier this year, which you can read about here.
Annwn recently had a visit from the Michelin team who left with some extremely positive reviews, Matt confides while I make myself comfortable at the table I'm going to sit at for the next four hours. Top tip for lonesome diners: don't arrive first. Especially when the restaurant is so tiny it only seats 10 when full. And especially when you've booked on a blowy Thursday evening in October and it's just you and another couple for dinner. As a fine-dining restaurant, where it's customary to sit facing the pass and watch the chef at work, there was no hiding place available for me at my front row seat. I was very definitely Billy no mates.
Matt was in the final moments of prep for evening service and subconscious that I was perched at my table with just a full array of fancy-looking cutlery for company, I tried to busy myself looking around. The restaurant is long and narrow and warmly lit, holding just 10 diners at full capacity. There are few restaurants as intimate as this. You can get more food news and other story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
Matt introduces himself and asks if I'm treating myself or just a very keen foodie. I'm neither and sidestep the question asking him about his recent awards. He is quietly proud although the only time I really see him truly animated is when he's talking about foraging for mushrooms and seaweed later on in the meal. Is a Michelin star the ultimate goal I ask?
Read more: The Good Food Guide 2022: The Welsh restaurants that have made it onto this year's list so far
Few chefs would turn down a Michelin star and Matt is no different, although he does lament the pretentiousness of some of the starred establishments. To get the accolade would be a bonus but for now he's content with building up his business which he runs with just himself and his partner Naomi. He has a grand plan and comes with a not insignificant amount of experience: he spent years working in Michelin-starred restaurants across Europe before leaving fine dining in 2012 to live in a tent and lead foraging trips around the shores and dells of rural Wales. Hence his enthusiasm for the provenance of the mushrooms.
What is clear from the off is Matt isn't into pretension or fiddly, fussy food. He is all about sourcing as much of his ingredients as he can himself from his garden and the Pembrokeshire shoreline. Naomi pours me water and recounts how she watches him disappear over the rocks with several kilos of seaweed on his back. Matt looks up briefly from behind the pass and tells me the local woods have been exceptional for mushrooms this year.
We reviewed Annwn in February this year. Fast forward to October and the 10-course tasting menu was still £120 a head and some of the dishes were recognisable, albeit refined a degree closer to perfection. I know what you're thinking: one hundred quid for dinner? But food like this is never just dinner: it's being immersed in a world where ingredients are cherished and treated with utmost care to create something on a plate that is wholly unexpected. It is not food you would want to eat every day and it's probably not as satisfying as a juicy steak and chips. But over the next four hours Matt and Naomi bring out plate after plate, each one epitomising this small corner of west Wales and celebrating everything about it.
Naomi delivers each course to the table almost ceremoniously while Matt crosses the restaurant threshold to explain the distinct elements to us three diners. He looks at each plate almost adoringly and I can practically feel the energy he's put into his work even if he's not the most enthusiastic talker out there. As a Pembrokeshire girl myself, each plate transports me to some of my favourite places.
First up is bread, air-dried lamb, lamb butter and preserved wild garlic. The wild garlic - pickled in apple cider vinegar - was almost a work of art on a white china canvas and its simplicity belied the amount of effort that had gone into it. The leaves, seeds and flowers had been foraged by Matt throughout the year and preserved at each distinct point in its lifecycle. It might have been practically winter, but here I was eating spring, summer and autumn all at the same time.
The flowers were subtly sweet and really offset the salty air dried lamb which Matt cures himself. The offcuts from the lamb are used to impregnate his homemade butter with a wonderfully sweet, rich lamb flavour and it's probably the only time I will ever spread butter onto lamb before shovelling it into my mouth. The bara planc, a traditional Welsh bread that’s cooked on a bakestone, was pleasingly warm with an almost-dense soft crumb. It was a really clever dish which felt like springtime.
Next comes an oyster dish which I think was my favourite of the entire meal. Matt sources his oysters from Atlantic Edge Oysters in Angle, a small company determined to revive the art of oyster farming. Oysters are an acquired taste which is why Matt whizzes them up to create a creamy, velvety mousse-like oyster puree served in a real shell sitting atop a mound of tiny pebbles.
It's decorated with a sprinkle of pepper dulse powder and perfectly-formed leaves of lemon verbana. The seaweed is edible, Matt assures me, and it comes with a bright green seaweed cracker. It's the standout dish for me, not least because it just feels and smells like Pembrokeshire on a plate. The oyster puree is a revelation - it retains the iron-rich taste but with none of the sliminess. I'm not too proud to say I used my little finger to scrape out every trace of the intensely savoury puree and it was with almost childlike delight I saw Matt come round with seconds. I didn't need to be asked twice if I'd like another dollop of oyster.
The menu describes course number three as "leeks from the garden" and Matt explains how he picked them only that morning. They are served soft and slippery - I dread to think how much butter or oil was needed to get them to such an unctuous texture - alongside a big spidery fried leek root. It tasted a bit like an onion ring and it was probably more impressive visually rather than in taste.
There were preserved whimberries too - Matt picked these up on the Preseli hills - and a dollop of Dolwerdd sheep cheese which comes from Crymych on the edge of the same Preseli hills. The whimberries were intense like port and went beautifully with the sweet salty cheese. It was quite literally Preseli on a plate this time and if I closed my eyes I could almost imagine the sheep roaming the hills and the tiny whimberries ripening amongst the wiry grass.
Next up came aged kelp broth. Matt explained how he aged the kelp - a type of seaweed - which he picked at low tide before steeping for weeks to create an intense, almost bitter, broth. It was served with a rock topped with little blobs of creamy siphon weed mayonnaise and sharp shoots of sea radish and scurvy grass. It was definitely different and interesting and I admire the way Matt tries to recreate the natural environment on a plate. But I felt like perhaps this amount of seaweed and sea grass was a bit too much in one go for me.
Then came "egg in the woodland". This was another absolute triumph, not least because the mushrooms picked by Matt had come from the woods next to where I live. The egg yolk is cooked for hours so it's just-set to deep yellow, rich, buttery deliciousness. Slivers of sombre black horn of plenty - an edible fungus - sit atop the yolk to give a striking contrast in terms of both look and taste. It's like a very posh morning fry up and comes with a penny bun sauce (another type of mushroom) which is just on the edge of bitter.
At this point, it's clear Annwn is all about hyper-local Welsh produce gleaned from the hillsides and the chilly waters of the Irish Sea. Matt, originally from Bridgend but moved to Pembrokeshire 12 years ago, thinks his homeland has the potential to be the next “it” dining destination. Based on his dishes, I think I'm beginning to agree. I didn't know my local woodlands held such delicacies.
I said I was excited at the start but I hit peak excitement levels when Matt started to prepare "Lobster and the shoreline". I don't often eat lobster and this generous portion of coral pink tail was served with some of the claw meat, an intense lobster roe and a subtly-flavoured lobster dressing. There was laver too which I decided to leave because I didn't want to spoil such a delicate delight. I'll admit that by this point I was losing interest in the sea grasses too. The saltiness of the shoreline plants was beginning to get a bit overwhelming so it was with some relief that I saw we were moving on to the dessert section of the meal. But not before I devoured every last scrap of the lobster and roe sauce.
First up was a fermented crab apple ice - the quenelle of ice was eye-wateringly sharp and tasted like a slushy scrumpy cider. It was a welcome contrast and reset the taste buds for the next plate of fresh meadowsweet cheese curds and local spring honey. In fact, I have to admit that I gobbled up the plate of deliciously creamy curds before I remembered to take a picture. The purity of the cheesy curds was such a delightful contrast to all that had come before, especially with the hefty dollop of Goodwood honey which Matt spooned on himself straight from the jar as he explained his curd-making methods.
The final "main" plate to be sent from the pass was a strangely-grey rectangle of birch vinegar meringue and a heap of meringue crumbs to the side. A duck egg was wedged into the crumbs and held a beautifully silken gorse flower custard. Unsure of how to approach such a pretty-looking plate, Matt advised me to dunk the meringue straight into the custard. I didn't need to be told twice and that's exactly what I did. The meringue was marshmallow-sweet and dissolved in the warm custard which was oh-so-subtly flavoured with gorse flowers. I closed my eyes again and this time it was like walking along the Pembrokeshire coast path in early summer.
It was with some relief that I realised we'd reached the final item on the 10-course menu: a chocolate cockle shell with a sea buckthorn gel centre. I'd been sat at my table for close to four hours and eaten some substantial plates of food and a little too much seaweed. My tummy was starting to feel rather full. The chocolate cockle was served up on a flat rock and brought the meal to an end with a flourish of unadulterated sweetness. There's always room for chocolate.
I've said it before now but I think it's worth mentioning again: to be cooked for by someone with as much skill and passion as Matt is a real privilege. The intimacy of a restaurant like Annwn means that you can't help but feel like you are at the centre of the world for just a few hours. Matt and Naomi are there to provide you with an experience to savour and to enjoy. What they achieve between the two of them in a tiny converted potting shed is simply impressive.
Matt's love of foraging and the natural environment is evident in the way he talks about his food and the way he cooks. Naomi is a calming presence and is quick to offer a kind smile to diners and a reassuring one to Matt. As I take my leave for the evening at 11.30pm, the couple are already starting to prep for the following day. I feel like I'm leaving friends. I certainly don't feel like I dined alone.
The challenges in the hospitality industry have never been greater than as they are now and yet Matt is determined to keep pressing forward, perfecting and refining his food. It's undoubtedly hard work in an unforgiving industry. Without a love and passion for it, it simply wouldn't work. It was a real privilege to be on the receiving end of that passion and to be shown that my home county is full of wonderful edible delights that I've never even heard of or noticed before. I will walk the coast path with new eyes and a deeper appreciation for the wonders of Pembrokeshire and Wales.
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