Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Malpas
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Malpas restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 33 restaurants in Malpas and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Malpas restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Malpas Restaurants
1. Clytha Arms
British, Modern restaurant in Abergavenny
Award winning pub & restaurant, just outside of Abergavenny. Set in its own large grounds,
The Clytha Arms is family run, warm & welcoming.
Wherever possible our ingredients are local & natural. We also cater for vegans & gluten free ...
2. Home at Penarth
British, Modern restaurant in Penarth
1 Royal Buildings, Stanwell Road - CF64
James Sommerin and his family continue to win high marks at this small and highly personal venue, where he cooks with the help of his daughter Georgia in an open kitchen, and with another daughter Angharad front of house. You eat from a no-choice surprise menu of eight courses for £155 per person: results are “fantastic” and, though hefty, “the final bill is not heart-stopping”.
3. Gem 42
Italian restaurant in Newport
42 Bridge Street - NP20
Twins Sergio and Pasquale Cinotti (a pastry chef) run this brave venture, which aims to bring the finest sourcing, seasonality and sustainability to a corner of Wales seldom associated with gastronomy. Despite having been the AA’s Welsh Restaurant of the Year in 2022/23 it inspired limited feedback in our annual diners’ poll. There are three-course, six-course and even a ten-course menu, ranging from £65 per person to £160 per person.
4. Puro By Tommy Thorn
British, Modern restaurant in Clevedon
Rear of 32 - 34 Hill Road - BS21
PURO Restaurant & Bar is a modern venue for relaxed, yet sophisticated, eating and drinking.All our food is fresh, with a focus on well sourced ingredients, providing simple but quality, seasonal food. In addition to the food menu is a carefully selected wine list (...
5. Mint and Mustard
Indian restaurant in Cardiff
134 Whitchurch Road - CF14
2022 Review: Raising the bar for local Indian eateries since it opened in 2007 (there's also a Penarth spinoff), this reliably packed venture – often drawing the local academic set – has a winning menu of thalis and other Keralan fare not always to be found at your average subcontinental.
6. Shake Shack
Burgers, etc restaurant in Cardiff
St David's Shopping Centre - CF10
2021 Review: In less than 20 years, Danny Meyer has transformed his New York City hot-dog cart into a global fast-food brand giant with eight outlets in London – including a Covent Garden flagship that was revamped earlier this year. Ratings remain remarkably solid for “a chain that does what it’s supposed to do”.
7. Cafe Citta
Italian restaurant in Cardiff
4 Church St - CF10
2021 Review: “A real gem”, this low-key but popular city centre venue provides “hearty Italian family fare” – mainly pasta and pizza – backed up by “great service”.
8. Casanova
Italian restaurant in Cardiff
13 Quay St - CF10
2023 Review: This “little gem” of an Italian restaurant – “close to the Millennium stadium, so perfect to help you celebrate or forget” – has a “pleasingly old-fashioned and independent atmosphere”, created by the three friends who have run it together for nearly two decades – Antonio, Selim and Luca. The small menu of “superb, authentic dishes” is not reliant on pasta and pizza, which makes a welcome change.
9. Asador 44
Spanish restaurant in Cardiff
14-15 Quay Street - CF10
Inside swish city-centre boutique hotel Parador 44, this moody, Iberian-themed restaurant featured on Channel 4’s ‘Remarkable Places to Eat’; as per the name, the “brilliant” food revolves around the Argentine-style asador grill, resulting in a veritable “meat feast” (“the slow-cooked lamb was memorable”), though squid and cauliflower also feature on the “very interesting” menu, alongside almost wholly Spanish wines and a tempting ‘del dia’ lunch deal.
10. Bar 44 Cardiff
Spanish restaurant in Cardiff
15-23 Westgate Street - CF10
This “lively spot” in the shadow of the Principality Stadium offers “great service” and a “good choice of tapas and wines” – “a lot of places promise ‘tapas’, but Bar 44 delivers authentic dishes and an excellent sherry list” (including three served directly from the barrel). It’s the flagship of the 44 group of Spanish-inspired venues, founded 22 years ago by siblings Owen, Tom & Natalie Morgan.
11. Five Guys Cardiff
Burgers, etc restaurant in Cardiff
Unit 9a, The Old Brewery Quarter, Saint Mary Street - CF10
2021 Review: “When all you want is an old-school burger”, these US-based arrivals of recent years really “hit the spot” – you can “build your own”, with “tons of accessories”; plus “seriously addictive fries”, “thick milkshakes”, and “more soda flavours than is reasonable”. “The eat-in experience is as depressing as McDonald’s”, though, in fact perhaps more so – “some branches have a strangely gloomy ambience” – but fans feel that “if you don’t mind 1980s-rock, a trip can still be surprisingly fun”.
12. Milkwood
British, Modern restaurant in Cardiff
83 Pontcanna Street - CF11
2021 Review: This “friendly and interesting” Pontcanna three-year-old serves up “outstanding” modern Welsh fare. Chef-owners Tom Furlong and Gwyn Myring met while working on the premises 15 years when it was an Italian restaurant, Cibo.
13. Thomas by Tom Simmons
British, Modern restaurant in Cardiff
3-5 Pontcanna Street - CF11
Tom Simmons is moving into his fifth year at his versatile Pontcanna venue, which incorporates elements of bar, brasserie and restaurant, with menus to match. “The menu choice is well thought through”: the main foodie event is a seven-course tasting menu for £85 per person where chef channels the energy of West Wales, where he grew up, into some “consistent and fine cooking”; but, equally, you could dine here from the à la carte on posh fish ’n’ chips or Carmarthenshire lamb’s loin. “Lovely and very professional service” completes the picture.
14. Five Guys Cardiff Red Dragon
Burgers, etc restaurant in Cardiff
Unit 9b, The Red Dragon Centre, Hemingway Road - CF10
2021 Review: “When all you want is an old-school burger”, these US-based arrivals of recent years really “hit the spot” – you can “build your own”, with “tons of accessories”; plus “seriously addictive fries”, “thick milkshakes”, and “more soda flavours than is reasonable”. “The eat-in experience is as depressing as McDonald’s”, though, in fact perhaps more so – “some branches have a strangely gloomy ambience” – but fans feel that “if you don’t mind 1980s-rock, a trip can still be surprisingly fun”.
15. Heaney's
British, Modern restaurant in Cardiff
6-10 Romilly Crescent - CF11
“Tommy (Heaney, of Great British Menu fame) never fails to deliver”, say fans of the chef’s hip, high-end suburban outpost, launched in 2018 with partner Nikki. The fish-centric seasonal cooking takes in an “excellent and reasonably priced set lunch” as well as more elaborate tasting menus, while a “great atmosphere” (low lighting, guest DJs) adds to its charms. Their no-booking oyster and wine bar, Uisce, is next door and also well worth a look.
16. Purple Poppadom
Indian restaurant in Cardiff
185a, Cowbridge Road East - CF11
The “upmarket and tasty Indian cooking” “never disappoints” at Keralan-born Anand George’s well-known fixture in a first-floor location away from the city centre, which is “worth trekking to” for an experience that’s “a cut above the normal suburban curry house” – “a must whenever we’re in Cardiff, for its attentive service, impeccable cooking and wonderful food”. (All of the good number of fans who comment on it are from different parts of Britain… none are from Wales!)
17. Heathcock
British, Traditional restaurant in Llandaff
58 - 60 Bridge Street - CF5
Consistently good ratings again this year for Tom Watts-Jones’s modern gastropub on the fringe of Cardiff (part of a small local group). Chef Tom Woodham’s bistro-esque cooking is too ambitious to be termed pub grub; and as well as the à la carte menu there’s a tasting option if you want to push the boat out.
18. Vegetarian Food Studio
International restaurant in Cardiff
115-117 Penarth Rd - CF11
2021 Review: “A Cardiff favourite”, this 16-year-old family-run Gujerati BYO is “very much a student hangout – but the vegan/vegetarian food is always excellent”.
19. Dusty Knuckle
Pizza restaurant in Cardiff
Papermill Road - CF11
2021 Review: Husband-and-wife team Phil and Deb Lewis run this cool pop-up-gone-permanent pizzeria in Canton – “I felt more on trend just by being there”. A crowdfunded sibling was scheduled to open in the restored Warden’s House on the edge of Bute Park in 2019.
20. The Angel Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Abergavenny
15 Cross St - NP7
In a “fine old building” close to the English border, this coaching inn (“cosy old bar” plus “sophisticated restaurant”) is “consistently good”, especially if you go for one of the “good- value” set menus (featuring “some unusual selections but all very well executed”). It’s part of the growing House of Caradog family, which now spans numerous local outposts: a sibling hotel, a bakery, an art shop and café, plus inn and restaurant The Walnut Tree, two miles off. Top Tip – “lovely and plentiful” afternoon tea – “everything is handmade and elegant” with a “superb tea choice and great array of savouries and cakes”.
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