Gwynedd Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: “A lovely, warm dining environment and excellent tasting menu” is the main impression given by this well-known, slightly offbeat fixture: a converted shed in a caravan park, which in the evening offers three-course, five-course and seven-course menu options. There was also the odd letdown reported last year, however.

There’s no dissent about the “great setting” of this “busy, buzzy” modern waterfront establishment, overlooking the Menai Straits; the food, however, tends not to live up to it, being “competent rather than interesting” (though “vegetarian dishes perform better than fish”). Despite recurrent grumbles, the business opened its fourth North Wales link in September 2023: a baked goods and general store, on Conwy’s High Street, and with a restaurant offering epic views to the castle.

Stephen Stevens continues to impress those who visit this converted butcher’s shop just over the Menai Bridge, which has won renown as one of Wales’s top culinary destinations. You are encouraged to ‘Forget the menu and savour the experience’, which is only available three nights per week and remains at £175 per person.

2022 Review: This large, family-run modern brasserie serves a well-received mix of standard dishes including burgers and pasta, with a choice of more unusual signature ‘Singapore-style’ curries. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be a catch at all.

Opening summer 2024 in a converted shed on a caravan site, the re-boot of Marram Grass, which ran for 10 years until the pandemic. Brothers Liam and Ellis Barrie have earned a strong reputation for warm hospitality and top-class, ingredient-led cooking, and they also invite a roster of guest chefs.

This unusual beachside destination – a contemporary glass-walled and environmentally friendly Huf Haus – is a “lively and colourful place, full of character”, serving “quick and efficient” meals that tick all boxes for “families and surfers”. With its “great views”, it might well be “the best of what’s available on Anglesey”.

Llandudno-born chef/patron Nick Rudge cut his culinary teeth at The Fat Duck; his small two-year-old venue occupies part of a gothic building that was formerly a cinema and bingo hall. It has won some renown for his ambitious, locally rooted cuisine, and our feedback this year was also enthusiastic (if still too limited for a rating): “lucky to get last table for two at short notice: great menu and wine flight with links to Wales for both food and wine, with strong results across all courses and very attentive and professional service… would recommend”.