Gareth Ward at Ynyshir: mixing Welsh produce with Japanese techniques

The ‘biscuits’ offer a not so subtle clue about what’s to come that evening at dinner, but at this point we don’t realise we’re in for one of the best meals of our lives. This may sound gushy but it’s entirely accurate. The food coming from Gareth’s kitchen is, frankly, a bit of an unexpected miracle. Being cynical London folk we’d wondered just how they’d make his approach – which is to use Welsh ingredients married with Japanese flavours and techniques – work. ‘It’s something that’s developed very slowly,’ Amelia tells us, which explains a lot about why it’s so effective. This isn’t simply a chef wading in with a ‘concept’ (shudder) but one who has developed his style organically, over time.

Everything about the dinner surprises us. Usually we’d hate the procession of twenty-one – count ‘em – mini courses, preferring a satisfying à la carte option rather than a potentially fatiguing tasting menu. But, oh, they’ve bamboozled us here too. What arrives is a succession of tiny flavour bombs, everything so skilfully punched with umami we take bite after bite before giving each other the wide eyes of wonder.

An intense onion broth comes with a glass of sake, which manages to convince the long-time sake hater at the table that the drink is worth consuming. No mean feat. Bread is of the sourdough, crackle-crusted variety and comes with two butters: one of them whipped with Welsh wagyu fat, one of them resembling a cube of fudge but spun through with miso. Both kick regular butter out of the park.

To describe all the courses here would be beyond reason and so here are a few highlights: a nugget of crab so perfectly cooked it felt like something entirely new; a melting piece of pork belly with ‘last year’s cherry’, preserved; the daintiest but most intensely flavoured cheese toastie ever created; raspberry jam on toast (yes) and a spectacular arrangement of blueberries, both fresh and frozen. Have you ever really enjoyed a blueberry? Turns out you need to travel to Ynyshir to do it.

Wines, too, are excellent, with the list eschewing the classics you might expect to find in a country house hotel in favour of terroir-focused wines from up and coming (trendy) regions like Tenerife, Swartland and the Willamette Valley. You’ll also find a smattering of natural wines alongside excellent value choices from the south of France and Italy. Standout wines were a gloriously textured Chenin Blanc from Mother Rock in the Swartland, South Africa and a 1999 vintage Xinomavro from Markovitis in Naoussa, Greek Macedonia.

The meal is billed as a ‘whole evening experience’ and that it is; the courses may be small but that much food takes time to prepare and arrive. That said, service of each course is swift and emerges from an almost silent open kitchen at the back of the restaurant. You know a chef is good when he runs a quiet kitchen. Ruling by fear and flinging pots and pans is about as dated as cheese and pineapple on sticks.

We don’t want it to end, despite the inevitable fullness, which is another great reason to stay the night – it means you get to experience breakfast. This happens in the same calm room as the previous night’s dinner, although it is transformed, each table set with multiple pots and dishes full of exciting preserves, yoghurt, granola, juice, fruit and more of those fantastic biscuits, just in case you were feeling any virtue.

The homemade crumpets get us excited, particularly when heaped with more of that miso butter and all this is before the main event, a cooked breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and a house-made lamb sausage patty. Our only complaint here is that we’d like another slab of carbohydrate to absorb those rich eggs. This is our one and only niggle throughout our stay – we even forgive the occasional use of tweezers as cutlery at dinner, which is really saying something.