With its prominent, elegant front on busy Cardiff Road, passed by thousands of drivers every day, the Heathcock was for many years a symbol of how difficult the licensed trade has been in Wales' capital.
Then painted cream with golden letters spelling its name across the front, the longstanding pub with a reputation for real ale shut suddenly after more than 30 years in 2011. New landlords came in with new ideas but, despite their hard work, it shut again six years later. A third new team came and went.
Yet quietly at first, a new team took over the pub in 2018 and have built a restaurant and pub business with a reputation which has spread far beyond Cardiff. Now in a much more sober and modern grey and black colour scheme, but still with the historic image of the bird which gives the pub its name hanging from its front, the Heathcock is one of the most prominent symbols of Cardiff's newly feted eating-out scene. Even the notoriously hard-to-please Jay Rayner has praised it.
