Caernarfon, British, Modern 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.

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.

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.