An Aberystwyth restaurant has been named the Opening of the Year 2022 by the UK’s most prestigious restaurant guide.
SY23, which is part-owned by chef Nathan Davies, was declared by the Michelin Guide to have “brought a breath of fresh air to the seaside town of Aberystwyth in Wales”.
Read more: The 50 best restaurants in Wales in 2022
The award came as Michelin announced their five special award winners on Tuesday, February 15, ahead of the unveiling of the new Michelin stars for the UK on Wednesday, February 16. The special awards recognise ‘the exceptional people and remarkable teams who have particularly impressed the Michelin inspectors over the past year'.
SY23 opened in 2019 and is co-owned by Nathan Davies, a star of Great British Menu and a former sous chef at Ynyshir. At his Aberystwyth restaurant he serves a menu of locally sourced meat and fish cooked over charcoal. Many of his ingredients come from the SY23 postcode in which the restaurant is based.
Responding to the announcement on social media, Nathan posted: “No words can explain how proud I am of the whole team, suppliers and guests that have made this possible.”
A Welsh speaker who has lived in Wales since he was six, Nathan Davies has had a varied career, having worked at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, as a private chef in France and with Stephen Terry at the Hardwick in Abergavenny.
Before opening SY23, Nathan was head Chef at Gareth Ward’s Ynyshir , arguably the most acclaimed restaurant in Wales as it holds a Michelin star, five AA rosettes and the highest Welsh ranking in the Harden’s Guide .
According to the Michelin Guide , at SY23, Nathan is ‘supported by a friendly, enthusiastic service team'. In the upstairs restaurant, an ‘open kitchen takes centre stage’ and a ‘charcoal grill is used to great effect’ throughout a nine-course menu of modern cooking which is served to every guest simultaneously.
Influences on Nathan’s cooking come from across Europe and Asia and foraged, pickled and fermented ingredients all feature on the menu.
Dishes on SY23’s current menu include crab with preserved elder; turbot with cockles and broccoli; lamb with black garlic and mushroom; and cox apple with wood sorrel and granola.
With SY23 now holding the title of Opening of the Year 2022, it means the restaurant stands a very good chance of picking up a Michelin star during the guide’s announcements on Wednesday, February 16.
Currently there are five Michelin-starred restaurants in Wales - Ynyshir in Powys, the Walnut Tree in Monmouthshire, Sosban and the Old Butchers in Anglesey, the Beach House in Swansea, and the Whitebrook in Monmouthshire.
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