Ynyshir
Eglwys Fach, Ceredigion
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The sense of almost mythological remoteness is accentuated as you head towards the west Wales coast, past the RSPB nature reserve, to the singular residence that is Ynyshir. Once owned by Queen Victoria, it has become one of the UK's foremost destination dining options – thanks to Gareth Ward and his superlative kitchen and front-of-house teams. Ynyshir runs to its own agenda, with dozens of dishes over the space of four or five hours, requiring a level of concentration that will be amply rewarded with revelatory food rocking with stirring flavours, textures and temperatures, plus a soundtrack curated by the resident DJ. Highlights from our latest visit ranged from a lobster claw with peanut brittle and spritzed lime (served on a hot metal plate) to another appetiser of raw prawns in Thai green curry sauce with slivers of sugar-snap. When the music amps up a little (Iggy Pop's 1977 hit, The Passenger, in our case), it's time to sashay into the dining room. What makes the experience so enjoyable is that there is no set way to eat the food; use whatever implements look right and ignore the neighbours. When we had finished our corpulent Orkney scallop, we lifted the dish to our lips and drank up the milky wagyu-fatted sauce. East Asian notes are a golden thread running through many of these dishes, sometimes almost conventionally so – as with the maki rolls that begin with yellowfin tuna, nori, white soy, sesame and English wasabi. Among the sushi offerings, the sea bream with compressed apple and more wasabi is a textural triumph. Miso-cured duck liver mousse with smoked eel and puffed spelt has plenty to say for itself, but so does a piece of Irish duck served in a style somewhere between Peking and char siu, but before we peak too soon, there's lamb rib to come, slow-cooked for an eternity, tender as marshmallow in shiso and onion, ahead of confit wagyu and mushroom ketchup alongside egg-yolked rice. A culinary joke takes us from savoury to sweet, via a burger with pickle and a homage to the McFlurry, flavoured with banana, birch syrup and caviar. A glitterball suddenly switches on and the smoke bucket is carried ceremonially through the room, to the strains of Bronski Beat’s Smalltown Boy. Desserts gently return us to the comfort zone with toffee pudding (albeit sauced with miso) and an elegantly layered, liquorous tiramisu. There is a feeling that you might need to prepare for Ynyshir by forgoing solid sustenance for 48 hours, but our feedback files show how volubly people adore the novelty, the challenge and the sheer unadulterated fun of it all. And it is less relentless than it sounds: 'the tempo of the performance surges, then slackens and surges again, led by the music, and the fever-pitch deliciousness of some of the dishes,' our inspector noted. Wine picks are as original and as assertive as they need to be for the food, and are flexible enough to accommodate the gentler end of the spectrum (a Bulgarian Pinot Noir was a success with lamb). However, some cheaper options don't quite have enough impact for many of the potently flavoured dishes.
