Malpas Restaurant Guide

“A must-visit if you ever find yourself in South Wales, with every dish a masterpiece” is how some diners assess Sergio and Pasquale Cinotti’s ambitious venue, which was the AA’s Welsh Restaurant of the year in 2022/23. It’s a stylish contemporary dining room complete with muralled ceiling and funky ceramic tableware. Choose your tasting menu according to whether you want a ‘short’ journey (four courses), ‘medium’ journey (six courses), or ‘long’ journey (ten courses) which are £65, £85 and £160 per person respectively. Feedback was again limited this year – more reports please!

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.

Nisha Katona’s Liverpool-based operation has two branches in London (Charlotte Street and Westfield Stratford) offering her “very tasty” Indian street food – “with the occasional hint of raw spice”. The Lancashire-born former barrister launched the business in 2014 and now has 28 outlets around the country, whose “enjoyable, authentic food” is “really great for a chain”.

“Consistently excellent” Italian food is the draw at Calabrian-born Antonio Cersosimo’s city-centre restaurant, a fixture for 20 years – “it’s been going for such a long time, is locally owned, independent and you get a real view into genuine Italian dining and food”.

“Absolutely delicious Basque/Spanish food, and not a paella in sight!” – Owen & Tom Morgan’s asador grill specialist, inside a boutique hotel a dropkick from the Principality stadium, offers “some of the tastiest food in Cardiff” alongside an “excellent all-Spanish wine list – we had a very delicious Ribera del Duero red with our ex-dairy cow steak”. But note, “you do really have to like the smoky style of cooking (we honestly felt a delicate sole was not suited to the treatment given)”.

For “well-priced, authentic tapas and Spanish wines” (they also offer sherries from the barrel), you’d travel far to better the flagship of the 44 group, also with outposts in Penarth and Clifton Village, Bristol. Those who haven’t been for a while report it “has much improved of late”, with “swish service” and “beautifully presented” food – no wonder the atmospheric, cellar-like space is “extremely popular” nowadays.

The French-inspired cuisine is quite straightforward and likewise the relatively traditional decor at Tom Simmons’s ‘Restaurant & Bar’ in Pontcanna, whose shortish a la carte features dishes such as Beef Short Rib or Fish & Chips; and where the tasting menu for £85 per person might include Roasted Monkfish or Creedy Carver Duck Breast. For whatever reason, it inspired no feedback this year, although it was rated very good across the board in last year’s survey. Reports please!

Set up by GBM’s Tommy Heaney and partner Nikki in 2018, this hip and haute suburban venue is “a breath of fresh air in Cardiff”, where the “happy, bustling atmosphere” is at poles to fine-dining starchiness. The “dead good value” tasting menu is rounded out by decently priced set menus and a hearty Sunday lunch. This year’s worst report? “I stopped just short of awarding a ‘5’, but surely this is one of the best places to fine dine in Cardiff?”

Keralan-born Anand George’s “outstanding, innovative” cooking has attracted a large following over the last 15 years for this first-floor venue whose “tasty menu is a cut above the usual curry-house fare in terms of variety and quality”. The chef, who trained with India’s notable Raj group, also owns a trio of more casual street-food-style outlets in Cardiff under the Tukka Tuk banner.

This “excellent Chinese restaurant near the cathedral” was opened almost 40 years ago by the Chim family, originally from Hong Kong, and may well be the best-known and “best-value Oriental restaurant in Cardiff”.

White-painted walls and a sparse, woody interior add to the modernised feel of this ‘Pub & Hotel’ on the fringe of Cardiff, which now more gives the impression of “an interesting restaurant, with an excellent range of beer”. The stated aim is ‘not pretentious fine dining; it’s just about good food’ – so you can choose from the bistro-esque set menu (two courses for £39 per person) or there’s a fancier nine-course tasting menu for £75 per person.

“It’s always a pleasure to visit” this lovely Georgian former coaching inn, whose “ever-changing menu full of flavour and skilful cooking never disappoints” – and whose afternoon tea is a large part of the equation. Declared Britain’s ‘Best Foodie Hotel’ by the Sunday Times last year, it makes a good base for a gourmet break near the Welsh border, also taking in a meal at The Walnut Tree, its famous sibling two miles away.

“This is a must-try” – an “all-girl crew” led by Cardiff-born Leyli Homayoonfar conjures up “an interesting twist on Mexican food with Iranian influences” (billed as ‘Fire, Food, Fusion’) in Newport’s “impressive Victorian covered market, now a food hall”. The “exciting flavours” are also available at outlets in Caerphilly and Barry.

With origins back to 1180, this “medieval building-turned-small hotel” provides an atmospheric spot for a meal. Too few reports for a full rating, but a Bristol-based fan says it’s worth knowing about for its Hispanic inflected cuisine, including tapas in the bar and on the terrace in summer. “The dining room is a beautiful space and the food does it justice. Our meal was significantly more fun than dragging unwilling family members around the nearby Roman remains afterward, though perhaps equally aesthetically appealing!”

Josh & Hannah Byrne are the duo behind this “beautiful” and “outstanding gastropub in the back of the Welsh beyond”, where the “small” and “great-value” menu has “something for everyone”, including superb “deep-fried oysters to start” – but famously no Sunday lunch, which the duo banished after decamping from Bristol to run it in 2018. Alas, the owners put the pub up for sale in May 2025, but there was still no sign of a regime change as we went to press, and they anticipate the sale process to take at least a year, so there’s still time to get in fast (like Times critic Giles Coren, who visited in summer 2025 and, as part of a hugely glowing review, praised its fava bean panisses [£5] for their “Michelin-level control and precision”).

2024 Review: Two former Gordon Ramsay and Galvin Bros staffers have joined forces to launch this ambitious restaurant and cocktail bar in the suburb of Roath. Its May 2023 debut occurred just as our annual diners’ poll was concluding – too late for feedback – but it aims to provide ‘something for everyone, whether you’re visiting post-dog-walk for a cocktail on our terrace or celebrating your 25th wedding anniversary’. The name? – as you probably know, the Silures were a powerful tribe of ancient Britain, occupying what is now south east Wales.