Latest news with #Ynyshir
Forbes
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
This Maverick British Chef Is Rewriting The Rules Of Fine Dining
Chef Gareth Ward (left) and a colleague at Ynyshir Gareth Ward believes fine dining should be fun. 'You're on a night out, for f*ck's sake,' says the iconoclastic British chef. 'Stop taking yourself so seriously. Let your hair down, kick your shoes off, enjoy the music. Eat some food, drink some wine, and just take 12 hours of your life out…. 'Loosen your shoulders, do some breathing. Don't be so angry. You know what I mean? It's just like, What's the point? Don't come. It's all about going out. It's all about having fun.' That's why a DJ booth has pride of place in the dining room at Ward's remote restaurant-with-rooms, Ynyshir, at the edge of Wales' Snowdonia National Park. It sits between the open kitchen and the handful of tables where diners sit side by side, schoolroom-style, to ensure that everyone has a view of the show on both stages. Bookshelves lined with vintage vinyl hang kitty-corner to racks of cooking implements in the kitchen. To be sure, the soundtrack helps Ward through service—'I can't really work without music,' he says—and it works as a drumbeat for the highly efficient servers as they present and clear the impressive 30 plates that make up a dinner at Ynyshir, an experience that takes about five hours. But it's also part of the gastronomic immersion that Ward has dreamed up. Diners at Ynyshir have pre-dinner drinks in the lounge That's why Iggy Pop's 'The Passenger' and Bronski Beat's 'Small Town Boy' are listed as 'bonus tracks' on the fashionably cryptic printed menus that guests receive at the end of the evening. They're played as the final desserts are served. The lights go down and the disco ball gets fired up, cartwheeling mirrored light around the room. 'If you get the right crowd, it's absolutely buzzing,' says the chef, throwing in an expletive or two. 'You get people dancing, you get people partying, letting their hair down.' It's an unusual way to describe a restaurant that holds two Michelin stars (the only one in Wales with such a distinction), but then, Ynyshir is a highly unusual restaurant. Since 2013, Ward has been relentlessly committed to innovation, bold flavors, meticulous craftsmanship and the very best versions of whatever ingredient he decides to serve. (And note that you will eat whatever ingredient he decides to serve: Ynyshir is an all-in experience, with no substitutions allowed.) Or as he describes it, it's things he wants to eat. And he doesn't mess around with anything less than the best. 'We don't take ourselves seriously at all,' he clarifies. 'But we take what we do very seriously.' That means quality-obsessed international sourcing, carefully controlled aging in a state-of-the-art salt chamber, and an unfailing determination to be unique. A slice of hamachi sashimi with wasabi Ynyshir was named the Best Restaurant in the UK in 2022 and 2023, and now it's attracting diners from further afield. Ward says he recently welcomed a Canadian couple. 'They'd flown from Canada to London. They'd hired a car, driven to this restaurant, had dinner, stayed over, driven back to London, got on the plane and gone back to Canada. I was blown away. I was almost in tears when they told me,' he recalls. 'I was like, You kidding me? That's f*cking stupid, you know what I mean? And they were like, No, we wanted to come to this restaurant for so long. All of our friends want to come. We wanted to be the first to do it.' Ward recognizes this both as an honor and as a responsibility—and as even more of an imperative to be unlike anything else in the world. 'I don't watch what anybody else is doing,' says Ward. 'I'm not interested. Not that anybody's not—there are some unbelievable restaurants and chefs out there—but I don't really want to be influenced by them. I want everything that comes out of this building to come from within this building. 'I think you can go to a lot of restaurants at the moment and have the same meal. There's nothing wrong with that if that's what they want to do. But I don't want to do that. I love going to a restaurant and being blown away by something different,' he continues. An unrolled handroll of bluefin tuna with preserved black truffle 'The amount of restaurants that are doing the Parker House rolls and the little tarts—you have four of these little tarts before the meal, and it's the same. It's just the same thing. I went to London a few months ago and I went to two restaurants on two nights, and I had exactly the same dish at both restaurants. I went, I spent a lot of money coming here; I don't want to eat that twice. I want a different experience, and that's what I try not to do here.' Unsurprisingly, he has little patience for trends like foraging and sustainability orthodoxy. His fish and A5 wagyu beef are flown in from Tokyo, his truffles come from Western Australia, and shelves behind the counter at the entrance—where he slices some of the hamachi, madai and Balfegó bluefin tuna that will begin the menu—display a global collection of condiments. There's Picual olive oil from Spain, Red Boat fish sauce from Vietnam and S&B curry powder in a red tin from Japan. 'If it's local, I want to use it, obviously. But if it's not, I'll go elsewhere,' he says, noting that his milk and shellfish come from quite close by. 'People go on about sustainability and stuff and local. Well, it's a great story, isn't it? Drawing a ring around your restaurant and saying, I'm not using anything outside of that? It's an unbelievable story. But if it's sh*t, what's the point? You're just lying to yourself and everybody else, and you're robbing people.' He continues, 'So if the lamb isn't amazing around here, I'll get the lamb elsewhere'—mostly Scotland and another region of Wales. 'Some of the local stuff around here, it's just not good enough. Just because there's sheep in my fields doesn't mean I'm going to use them.' A bedroom at Ynyshir His respect for ingredients extends to storing, preserving and cooking them. Often, that means a willingness to do the minimum and let the products shine on their own. The first quarter of the menu is raw or nearly so (and heavily inspired by Ward's many trips to Japan): sashimi slivers of that madai, hamachi and bluefin are enlivened with white soy, tama miso or simple fresh wasabi. From there, the menu moves around Southeast Asia, starting with fish and seafood—local shrimp with green curry, local lobster with nham jim—and then moving on to birds and meat. In keeping with his vision, Ward doesn't shy away from strong flavors. The Singapore-style chili crab is properly spicy, and the bird larb is even more so. He comes back to Wales for the desserts, going heavy on the local dairy products, as in the cream in the custard that's served with a Pricia apricot, in the tiramusi that's laced with Ethiopian coffee and in the milk that's paired with mango and passionfruit. And one of the ingredients he's most proud of is his hyperlocal birch syrup, which is collected from trees on the estate. He serves it over banana ice cream and N25 Kaluga caviar. Snowdonia is also heavily present in the dining room. Local sheepskins cover the chairs, the ceramics are made down the road, and much of the furniture was made onsite. Ward notes proudly that Ynyshir is perhaps the only restaurant in the world to employ a full-time blacksmith—instrumental not only in restoring the old manor house that became the restaurant but in maintaining its many handmade details. The rooms upstairs, in the nearby garden house or in the smattering of tepees on the grounds are filled with the same attention to detail and spirit of serious unseriousness. Ward's fun nights out don't end with the last petits fours, and neither do Ynyshir's lasting impressions.
Wales Online
27-05-2025
- Wales Online
This market town has mountain biking, bookshops and some of the best food in Wales
This market town has mountain biking, bookshops and some of the best food in Wales This historic hotspot is packed with indie shops, biking trails and is home to the only restaurant in Wales with two Michelin stars. While many small UK towns have succumbed to chain stores and bland shopping options, this quirky town has plenty of independent shops and cafes to explore (Image: Portia Jones ) The Market town of Machynlleth, affectionately known as "Mach" to locals, is a historic hotspot packed with indie shops, forested biking trails and is home to the only restaurant in Wales with two Michelin stars, Ynyshir. Located in the Dyfi Valley, this small, forward-thinking town was formally the seat of Owain Glyndŵr's Welsh Parliament in 1404 and is often cited as the "ancient capital of ales." It also holds the accolade of being one of only two UNESCO Biosphere Reserve sites in the UK. Despite its small size, Mach has an impressive number of independent retailers; you won't find a Starbucks or a Tesco here. Instead, you can buy books, clothes and antiques from local businesses and get unique items to take home. Outside of shopping, there's plenty to do and see in Mach, from outdoor pursuits to destination dining, arts, and culture. There are also some marvellous places to eat and feast on local produce. Here's why you should head to Mach for a weekend break. From superstar gigs to cosy pubs, find out What's On in Wales by signing up to our newsletter here Shopping clocktower on Main Street, Machynlleth Wales, Great Britain (Image: Michael Pasdzior /getty ) Article continues below One of the key attractions in Machynlleth is its array of independent shops that line Heol Maengwyn, the main street. The town prides itself on its unique, locally-owned stores, which include a variety of antique shops, bookstores, homeware shops, shoe stores, delis, and even a record store. Additionally, galleries display local Welsh art and crafts, providing a deep dive into the region's artistic heritage. The vibrant market held every Wednesday is another highlight, offering everything from local produce to handmade crafts. I love a good bookshop! (Image: Portia Jones ) Pen'rallt Gallery Bookshop, housed in a charming building, provides a wide range of new and second-hand books and regular author events and readings. Another notable shop is Corrie's Cabin, a popular destination for fishing supplies and outdoor gear. Elsewhere in town, there are independent bookstores, junk shops, and high-end antique dealers. This is the town to visit if you want to furnish your home with vintage items or classic pieces. Ayurveda Apothecary is also located on the high street, selling a range of organic face & body natural beauty products. Machynlleth fashion With a dressmaker and bespoke shoe shop, Machynlleth is the ideal place to update your wardrobe and seek a new style. The town is home to the Original Shandals Co. and RED (Ruth Emily Davey) Shoes, known for their carefully crafted footwear. Ruth's charming shoe shop is located on the main high street. Here, you can buy the world-famous 'Shandals', designed by Alan James Raddon in 1992. The unique shoes result from a creative collaboration between Alan and his former apprentice Ruth, who now owns her own brand, RED shoes. They are designed to last, be repairable after years of wear and tear, and come in vibrant colours. Nearby, you'll find Anderson Apparel, which specialises in custom apparel, clothing designs and pattern-cutting services. It's a small, quantity clothing design and manufacture company run by Christine Anderson, an award-winning qualified Designer and Pattern Cutter. They have a made-to-measure service for private clients only by appointment, so you can spoil yourself with custom-made clothes on a fun shopping trip to Machynlleth. What to do in Machynlleth The town prides itself on its unique, locally-owned stores (Image: Portia Jones ) Machynlleth also hosts several events that significantly boost its independent shopping scene. The Machynlleth Comedy Festival is held annually and attracts thousands of visitors, benefiting local businesses. During the festival, local shops and cafes report a surge in patronage, providing a vital economic boost to the town. The festival has grown significantly since its inception, featuring nearly 300 shows and drawing over 8,000 visitors a year. From comedy to culture and biking, here's what to do in Machynlleth once you've exhausted all your shopping options. Have a laugh The market town is probably best known for the famous Machynlleth Comedy Festival, which has grown year after year into one of the significant events on the UK comedy circuit and has put Mach on the entertainment map. Every year, thousands of comedy fans flock to Machynlleth for the three-day event, which some of Britain's most recognisable comedians use to try out much of their new material. Previous performers include Aisling Bea, Jon Richardson, Stewart Lee, David O'Doherty, Mark Watson, and Josh Widdicombe. Machynlleth Comedy Festival (Image: Machynlleth Comedy Festival ) Discover Modern Welsh Art at MoMA Machynlleth Home to contemporary Welsh art and culture, Machynlleth's MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) is a must-visit attraction. The museum is housed inside a converted chapel with seven galleries and an intimate concert venue. It hosts various events throughout the year, including Machynlleth Festival events, recitals for children, jazz concerts, and musical renditions. Throughout the year, MoMA exhibits an impressive array of Modern Welsh Art, featuring leading artists from Wales, works from the growing Tabernacle Collection and selected entries from the Tabernacle Art Competition. Go biking at Dyfi Bike Park World-class biking can be found on the forested trails of nearby Dyfi Bike Park. This impressive bike park results from years of hard work by the Atherton family and the local community to create diverse and challenging trails that cut through the Esgair Forest. Confident riders can buy an uplift pass for £43 and use the uplift from 10am to 4pm to explore long descents over varied terrain. Make sure to swing by their on-site cafe for a home-cooked lunch and an excellent cup of gourmet coffee. Riders take on the exciting trails at Dyfi Bike Park (Image: Portia Jones ) Attempt the Cader Idris summit at sunrise At 893 m (2,930 ft), Cader Idris is one of the highest mountains in Eryri National Park. It is a challenging trek for keen hikers who want an alternative to wildly popular Yr Wyddfa. Trek up the distinctive peak of Cader Idris in Southern Eryri just before dawn and watch as the National park is bathed in golden sunlight. There are three recommended routes to conquer Cader, all of which are pretty strenuous. So, ensure you are prepared for this adventurous hike through the dramatic ridges. If you are relatively new to hiking, why not take a guided walk up Cader Idris with adventure experts Wild Trails Wales and navigate the mountain safely? Where to eat and drink Ynyshir Restaurant and Rooms (Image: Ynyshir / Instagram ) Machynlleth is on the border of Mid Wales and Southern Eryri National Park (Snowdonia) and is filled with foodie options and local produce. Whilst Southern Eryri has a stellar reputation for rugged landscapes, epic hiking trails, and adventure activities, less is known about its bountiful local produce and impressive dining options. The southern fringe of the national park offers a surprising bounty of local produce, craft gin, wild foraging opportunities, and even Michelin-starred dining. It's also home to the only UNESCO Biosphere in Wales, with its nature reserves, lowland, wet grassland, and salt marshes that provide a variety of sustainably sourced produce. Take a gastro-journey through Southern Snowdonia and feast on succulent venison loin, local samphire-infused seafood dishes and cym dyfi lamb. Try the tasting menu at Ynyshir Welsh Lamb Spare Rib (Image: Heather Birnie ) Located just outside of Mach in Eglwysfach, Ynyshir is not just a restaurant; it's a culinary journey. This two-Michelin-starred restaurant with room, helmed by Chef Gareth Ward, offers an immersive dining experience that lasts several hours and features multiple courses. The menu is a playful blend of Welsh and global ingredients, meticulously crafted into dishes that are as much about the experience as the taste. The restaurant's unique approach and luxurious rural setting make it a must-visit for serious foodies. Ynyshir comprises accommodation and a destination Michelin-starred restaurant, which the Good Food Guide has named one of the country's top five restaurants. Chef Patron Gareth Ward serves a bold, self-proclaimed 'ingredient-led and flavour-driven' tasting menu. This innovative restaurant with rooms offers diners an ingredient-led and flavour-driven tasting menu, including around 30 courses. The menu is also interactive. You can touch and ask about the ingredients while watching them cook over the fire. Exquisite dishes are heavily fish—and meat-based and inspired by the locale. Gareth uses as many local and Welsh products as possible, including lamb from Aberystwyth, ducks from Fishguard, and vegetables from Anglesey. Chef Patron Gareth Ward serves a bold, self-proclaimed 'ingredient-led and flavour-driven' tasting menu. (Image: Heather Birnie ) Cafes in Mach and beyond Y Gegin Fach is a beloved local spot where you can enjoy traditional Welsh dishes in a warm, homey setting. The hearty breakfasts and comforting lunches here make it a favourite among locals and visitors. Next, take a stroll to Blasau Delicatessen in the town centre. This deli is a treasure trove of local flavours, offering a curated selection of Welsh cheeses, cured meats, and artisanal products. It's the perfect place to grab a gourmet sandwich or some treats to take home. The atmosphere is inviting, and the passion for local produce shines through in every bite. For a different foodie vibe, head to Cletwr in nearby Tre'r Ddôl. More than just a café, Cletwr serves as a community hub, offering a menu of homemade soups, cakes, and other hearty fare, all made with locally sourced ingredients. The setting is relaxed, and you'll find locals catching up over coffee or enjoying a slice of cake in this warm, welcoming space. Foraging for wild marsh samphire at Dyfi Estuary Dyfi Estuary, with the expansive and golden sands of Ynyslas Beach at its mouth, provides a unique habitat for wildlife and plants. The River Dyfi catchment area is unique in Wales, having been designated a Biosphere by the United Nations 'Man and Biosphere' programme. In the spring, the salt marshes are awash with sea pink, whilst marsh samphire and sea aster can also be seen in summer. It's a relatively serene spot for wild foraging for wild marsh samphire, with a crisp texture and salty taste that works well with seafood and pasta dishes. Several cafes and restaurants in Southern Snowdonia utilise this bright green sea bounty in their fish dishes to add colour and crunch. To forage the samphire yourself, pinch or use scissors to snip the tips of the stems, leaving the tough, yellow lower stalks intact. Clean and lightly steam the samphire before serving with butter atop seafood dishes. Ynyslas Beach is a beautiful place for wild foraging (Image: Portia Jones ) Go gin tasting at Dyfi Gin Corris Craft Centre is a unique collection of nine individual craft studios where visitors can purchase food, drink, crafts and gifts from talented producers and designers. It's also home to Dyfi Distillery, which creates premium Welsh gins - Dyfi Gin. The multi-award-winning gins are perfectly crafted with wild Welsh foraged botanicals. Pollination Gin is one of the few gins in the world produced from mostly foraged botanical ingredients and has a very reasonable price point. You'll find the former slate village of the same name near the craft centre, the Centre for Alternative Technology, King Arthur's Labyrinth, and the narrow-gauge Corris Railway and Museum. Article continues below
Daily Record
24-05-2025
- Automotive
- Daily Record
James Martin admits he 'always struggles' as he comes to heartbreaking realisation
TV cook James Martin has opened up about the huge change he has had to make to his car collection after admitting that he struggles to get in and out of race cars Celebrity chef James Martin has revealed he's parting with some of his race cars, conceding that they've become a challenge to exit as he's aged. "The car collection sort of changes as you get older," he shared with Samuel Goldsmith on the Good Food podcast. "You can't get in the cars that I bought 20 years ago and I can't get out of them. So I've sold quite a few of the race cars and I've gone into sort of old school cars. So stuff that I can get into and get out of." At 52, James has previously noted that motor racing is better suited for the svelte: "It comes down to the fact that I race cars, or I still try and race a few cars and I actually struggle to get out of them now. Getting in them, you kind of fall in them, but then you've got to get out of them and it just doesn't look very good." His enviable collection, valued at an estimated £5million, includes vehicles with significant historical value. Highlights of his fleet include one of Colin McRae's iconic Subaru Impreza rally cars and a classic Mini Cooper once helmed by British rallying greats Paddy Hopkirk and Rauno Aaltonen, reports Devon Live. However, for his upcoming visit to Gareth Ward's acclaimed eatery, Ynyshir, James plans to arrive in something more accommodating: "I booked a table there about three months ago," he mentioned. "I'm going to take one of the old vintage cars that's got a comfy seat all the way up to Wales." James has hailed Ynyshir as "the best restaurant you'll eat anywhere in the world," praising it as "absolutely spectacular". Situated in Powys, Ynyshir prides itself on utilising local ingredients, such as Aberystwyth lamb, Fishguard ducks, and Welsh Wagyu beef from Montgomery in Mid Wales. Owner Gareth Ward shares his ethos: "I want people to come here and relax and have fun. We don't have front of house staff. The chefs serve the food." While James eagerly anticipates a sumptuous dining experience at the two Michelin-starred Ynyshir, he's keeping things much more modest in his own kitchen. To maintain his weight, James is sticking to a straightforward daily breakfast regimen: "Grilled tomatoes on toast. It's very simple and very tasty. And the barbecued leeks with lardons and hazelnuts," he shared. However, he concedes that he stops short of forsaking his cherished butter. James has even penned a tome titled 'Butter: Comforting, Delicious, Versatile - Over 130 Recipes Celebrating Butter'. He finds amusement in the fact that his book goes against the current, quipping about the trend among food writers for health-conscious publications: "I brought out a book on butter."
Telegraph
11-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Why cutting-edge restaurants have abandoned knives and forks
Some Michelin-starred restaurants have their own vineyards. Some have their own citrus orchards or rare-breed pigsties; others have beehives and butchers. Ynyshir, Gareth Ward's two-starred restaurant on a stretch of wooded coast near Aberyswyth, has its own smithy. Twenty paces from the kitchen you will find the resident blacksmith, a burly Welsh grandfather named Lee Jones, hand-forging every single piece of metal that the diner will bring to their lips during their five-hour ingestion of Ward's £385-a-head, 30-course tasting menu. There's the two-tined fork for pronging the lobster claw satay, another specialised fork for the pigeon course and a particular spoon for the caviar, too. The Welsh Wagyu beef course requires a pair of sprung tweezers with buffalo horn tips – incredibly fiddly to make, apparently. 'If you don't get the spring right, they'll snap or stay shut or whatever,' says Jones. 'And putting the buffalo tips on them, that was tricky too. I did 22 sets of them, I think it took me about 10 days.' All in all, he estimates that he has made around 350 different pieces – 'knives, forks, spoons, different-size spoons, spikes, skewers, plates, tumblers, pots, you name it. From front door to back door, it's all my work in there. It's a big thing for me.' For diners, too, a nose inside the Ynyshir Smithy is all part of the experience, just like the black walls and techno soundtrack. 'I like to use the best and I don't like buying things off shelves,' is how Ward explains it. 'I can have an idea and Lee will just make it.' As Jones says, it has to have that 'wow factor'. These are baroque times in the world of high-end cutlery as chefs seek ever-finer points of distinction, ever wowier factors for their customers. 'If you want a Michelin star, you almost certainly have to have some kind of individuality in your tableware,' says Alex Pole, who hand-forges bespoke cutlery for chefs such as Simon Rogan and Masaki Sugisaki. 'You can't get away with John Lewis.' Employing one's own on-site blacksmith is clearly one direction – but as long as your cutlery is making a statement, almost anything goes. At Yannick Alléno's Pavyllon in Park Lane, each course arrives with a special scraping spoon, specifically designed for mopping up the purées and foams that the 17 times Michelin-starred chef likes to smear on plates. For The French in Manchester, Adam Reid commissioned a 'spoonular' implement of clay and shell that would perform the work of knife and spoon. It was arguably Ferran Adrià's El Bulli that started the trend back in the noughties – there, diners would be presented with items such as Luki Huber's 'baroque skewers', designed to spear tasting morsels, and 'clip spoons', half spoon, half clothes peg, which allowed bouquets of aromatics to be suspended under the nose as food was brought to the lips. El Bulli-style spoon-docks – special wooden nestling cases for tasting spoons – are fairly standard now. Enigmatic knives are increasingly common: scalpels, switchblades, surgical daggers such as the ones that appear with the meat course at Osip in Bruton, where you can't quite tell which is the sharp side. It is fair to say that the days of restaurateurs simply treating 'flatware' as an after-thought are behind us. Pole sees his handmade cutlery in line with the organic movement in food. 'People are becoming more interested in provenance and where things come from – in individuality,' he says. 'It all goes hand-in-hand.' When I visit Pole at his forge in west Dorset – photogenically arrayed with gorgeous anvils, hammers, axes, knives, and bronze garden implements – he is midway through a 1,000-piece order from Sugisaki's restaurant Dinings in Knightsbridge. The dainty little sushi plates can be hammered out relatively fast: about 20 per day. Each fork, however, requires a 16-step process of firing, bending, refiring, hammering and drilling, to transform it from a rod of stainless steel to three-pronged eating implement. 'If you're making a batch of 50, say, the trick is not to get swamped by the number,' he says. 'I'm going to have to drill 200 holes in these forks but I try not to think of that. What you need to do is to treat each piece as an individual.' You might imagine that chopsticks are a breeze in comparison but actually they are harder. Chopsticks have to be extremely thin, they have to be extremely straight ('no one wants a wobbly chopstick') and they have to taper from 6mm to 1.5mm. The thinner a piece of steel, the less it holds the heat, which means there is a vanishingly small window to work on it. You can begin to appreciate why the Dinings chopstick gift set retails at £250. It is a process that breeds obsession. 'Simon [Rogan] and his head chef spent hours testing teaspoons. Hours!' says Pole. 'The initial set we made were short stubby spoons with quite deep bowls. They looked great. But the top of the bowl caught your teeth – not a pleasant experience.' He insisted on taking them all back and reforging them. 'It's like a lot of things. The more you get into it, the more obsessed you become.' It can get lonely in the forge – it's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a life – but Instagram has allowed a lively community of blacksmiths to form and to advertise their wares. 'It's more popular now than it's been since the industrial revolution, I'd say.' Jones agrees. 'Instagram has done me the power of good,' he says. 'The teachers at school tried to tell me there wasn't much future in this. But it seems to be thriving at the moment, anyway.' Naturally, the really successful restaurateurs have always been all over such fine details. The last fork I can remember remarking upon was at The Park, Jeremy King's delightful neo-diner overlooking Hyde Park. It was incredibly heavy, deliberately so. King tells me it was inspired by an implement that he had enjoyed eating with at the Four Seasons in New York. 'Like all good design, cutlery shouldn't shout for attention but withstand scrutiny,' he says. 'In restaurants, attention to detail should enhance the subliminal experience as much of what contributes to enjoyment isn't immediately obvious. There is, of course, a particular sensuous feel to silver but even stainless steel can be rewarding if the grade is 18/8 as opposed to 13/0.' What he is talking about here is the ratio of chromium to nickel. 'The weight in the hand is crucial.' Pole tells me that he has now made so many forks that he barely needs to look at them any more – he can feel if it's a good one. For the same reason, he never wears gloves when he is hammering. 'Cutlery is really about weight. It's really about how it feels in the hand. If you pick that up and feel it, it has a balance to it. Whereas if you have bad cutlery, it just feels bad. It doesn't work.' But developing an eye for cutlery can be a curse, too. You realise how much bad cutlery there is. 'I sort of think you shouldn't notice it,' says Corin Mellor, the creative director of David Mellor, the tableware design company established by his father in the mid-1950s, which supplies The River Cafe, The Clove Club and The Connaught, among others. 'I always notice bad cutlery. Good cutlery is more invisible. It's subtle.' Spoons, he says, should be tapered: 'The middle of the bowl will be 2mm thick and the edge will be 1mm.' Knives will ideally be made of a higher carbon steel to the forks and spoons so that they can be sharpened. Otherwise it will need to be serrated and serration blunts over time. 'The majority of knives you will find in restaurants have serration on them.' Serration 'has its place…' he says, diplomatically. 'But it's not ideal.' A bad fork, meanwhile, will have 'brusque edges' that dig into the palm. Mellor has noticed a shift in cutlery trends in recent years. When he joined the family business, tableware was generally selected by an architect or interior designer, perhaps the restaurateur. 'Now what we're finding is that it's the chefs themselves who are dictating what knives and forks are used to eat their food,' he says. In one sense, this stands to reason. Unlike the tablecloth or pepper mill or chair, the cutlery is (hopefully) the only item of the restaurant's design that you will put in your mouth. 'Now – quite rightly – they're taking the cutlery a lot more seriously.' However, with the involvement of chefs comes a move away from the cutlery subtlety and towards cutlery one-upmanship. At Albatross Death Cult in Birmingham – a fish restaurant that, like Ynyshir, attracts adjectives like 'challenging' and 'uncompromising' – there is no cutlery at all. You must figure out how to eat the 16-course omakase tasting menu with your fingers. Then again, there has always been an element of theatre to fine dining. As if to emphasise the point, at Ynyshir all of the seats face the kitchen – and as at the theatre, you get the sense you're not really supposed to talk to your neighbour. As for domestic use, we might just be at the beginning of a cutlery crisis. The Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson recently endorsed a ready-for-school checklist of basic skills expected of children starting reception. This is in response to complaints from early years educators that children now frequently arrive at school unable to share, take themselves to the toilet – or use basic tableware. But who says knives, forks and spoons are the be-all and end-all? Why not chopsticks and sporks or the special fork-knife that Roald Dahl describes his one-armed father inventing for the purpose of eating boiled eggs? I have been forced to rethink my own cutlery use as I recently fractured my left clavicle playing football and can no longer use my dominant left hand for forking and spooning. I have taken to draping a napkin over my shoulder, Tudor style, and using my right hand – modelling my table manners on Mark Rylance's exquisite performance as Thomas Cromwell in the BBC's recent The Mirror and the Light adaptation. It wasn't always impolite to eat with your fingers or from the end of your knife. When my children did this, I used to tell them off. When my children tell me off, I now remind them that none of our customs are really so fixed – as is impressed on me when I visit Kirstin Kennedy, metalwork curator at the Victoria & Albert museum. 'Everyone has a spoon,' she says, meaning all known cultures have developed some version of the essential slurping implement. (For much of British culinary history, food was indeed a good deal slurpier than it is today, all pap, potage, porringer and posset.) Knives, too, have always been in use though it was generally expected that you'd bring your own. It is the fork that is johnny-come-lately of the table. Traditionally forks were used merely to hold meat in place while cutting it, which Kennedy demonstrates with a handsome 17th-century ivory knife case from Sheffield, comprising six small knives and just the one two-pronged carving fork. 'If you think about forks, they're quite dangerous really,' says Kennedy. 'It is a bit unnatural to put a pointed thing into your mouth. The English weren't having any of it.' Forks only became fashionable in the late 17th century, arriving via the Italians who used them for pasta. But it was the 19th century – with the advent of mass production and global travel – that was the great period of cutlery innovation. In the V&A, you can find pudding trowels, marrow scoops (for bone marrow), ice spades, asparagus tongs, sardine tongs, lobster picks, crumb scrapers and cheese scoops. 'By the end of the 19th century, there was an implement for everything,' says Kennedy. Our modern cutlery sets are relatively restrained by comparison. But even here, Mellor reports a subtle evolution. The 'traditional' English place setting comprises six pieces: a starter knife and fork, a larger knife and fork, a dessert spoon and a soup spoon. The soup spoon is now the endangered piece, its replacement the large American teaspoon (which David Mellor terms a 'fruit spoon'). 'This was never part of the English place setting but perhaps it's a better size for the modern dessert.' The steak knife is another fast riser. 'Steak knives have gone mad recently. There's this mania for steak knives.' Lee Jones's knives are in particularly high demand – his knife clients include The Ledbury and St Barts in London – though business is threatened by Instagram's AI filters, which now automatically edit out anything that might be perceived as a weapon, including occasionally spoons. But Jones's major concern is that there aren't enough young blacksmiths coming through. 'That's the biggest issue. There's no metalworking in school any more and it's a job getting the right guy with the right kind of attitude and work ethic. I'd love to have an apprentice. But finding the right youngster – it's difficult.' For any young people who do want to take the challenge, there is a bright future in blacksmithing. 'Cutlery has become a big thing recently,' confirms Alex Pole. These are tools so intimate we barely think of them as tools at all, tools that may be infinitely refined. 'Well. It's always been a big thing. At least since we stopped eating with our hands.'
BBC News
11-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Michelin star restaurant in Cardiff 'amazing' says chef
A Cardiff chef has said that gaining Michelin star status has been a dream of his for a long time. Gorse restaurant, in Pontcanna, is the first restaurant in the city to gain Michelin star status. Founder Tom Waters said it's surreal and the feeling is still sinking in. His was one of just 26 restaurants across the UK to be awarded a prestigious Michelin star this year. "It's been a dream of mine for a long time, it's amazing to see it come to fruition," he said. Speaking to Claire Summers on Radio Wales Drive, Mr Waters said he wasn't aware of when Michelin star inspectors arrived at the restaurant. "It's so cloak and dagger. They have these undercover inspectors that come in a few times a year," he said. "We have a very open kitchen so I've managed to sniff one of them out but generally not. "They report back to Michelin headquarters and I got an email two weeks ago saying you've been invited [to a ceremony], but even then no more information than that."It's only when Mr Waters heard his name and restaurant read out during the ceremony, that he knew he won Michelin star status. He added: "It's very nerve-wracking but the feeling was indescribable. It was all those years of hard work coming to fruition." Where are the Michelin star restaurants in Wales? Ynyshir, MachynllethBeach House, OxwichGorse, CardiffHome, PenarthSosban & The Old Butchers, Menai BridgeThe Whitebrook, WhitebrookWalnut Tree, Llanddewi Skirrid Gorse restaurant opened in Pontcanna, Cardiff in May 2024 after a series of pop-ups. Mr Waters said it's aim is to "reimagine traditional welsh cuisine" but "keeping it fun and relaxed". "The idea was to put the best of Welsh produce on a plate. We work with Welsh growers, farmers, artisans, just a lot of local people," he said. Since the restaurant has gained the status, Mr Waters said "it's amazing" to see that bookings haven't stopped. "I've been working away for a long time and always had the aim to come back here," he said. "To do it in our home city, with all these amazing guests who have supported us from the beginning, it is truly amazing. "I'm really thankful for everyone who has supported us over the last two years."
