Get FREE email communications from Fodor's Travel, covering must-see travel destinations, expert trip planning advice, and travel inspiration to fuel your passion.
Wales has developed a thriving restaurant scene over the last decade or so, and not just in major towns. Some truly outstanding food can be found in rural pubs and hotel restaurants. More and more restaurants are creating dishes using fresh local ingredients—Welsh lamb, Welsh Black beef, Welsh cheeses, and seafood from the Welsh coast—that show off the best of the region's cuisine.
Up a small hill next to Ogmore Castle, The Pelican stands like a mirage. This friendly little pub is a welcome spot for lunch or a restorative pint after the long walk from Merthyr Mawr. Try the cow pie with rich gravy and seasonal vegetables.
A short drive from Nash Point is this historic pub, on the edge of the tiny clifftop village of Monknash. The food is delicious and unfussy; the menu changes regularly, but features tasty pub classics like burgers and fish-and-chips. Everything is served in a cozy dining room with a fireplace. There's a small but decent wine list, and an even better selection of real ales and ciders. It's popular with locals, so call ahead or be prepared to wait.
This 19th-century chapel has been successfully converted into a café with four on-site bedrooms, complete with original features. It's a good spot for breakfast, and at lunchtime, you'll find sandwiches and salads on the menu. Book ahead for a delicious Afternoon Tea. The owners roast their own coffee beans and use local produce where possible. The café is 3 miles east of Llangollen.
Vaulted ceilings and exposed brick walls provide a dramatic backdrop to this restaurant down the block from Cardiff Castle. Formerly a bank vault, today the Potted Pig turns out superb Welsh dishes. Starters like pork pâté with toast and pickles and a choice of delicious desserts keep diners happy. Servers are warm, attentive, and knowledgeable about the impressive wine list; you can also opt for one of the 30 gins.
Sheep's-milk ice cream, delicious cakes, and local produce mixed with international flavors are offered at this little café. Many customers come just for the coffee, especially the Lebanese variety.
In a seafront building in picture-postcard Porthdinllaen, this pub has what is undoubtedly one of the best locations in Wales. The lunches are honest and unpretentious: pies, sandwiches, or perhaps a plate of local mussels in garlic butter. Everything is delicious and reasonably priced. The atmosphere is friendly and slightly bohemian; this is the kind of place where they're pleasantly surprised you've managed to find it.
This coaching inn, built in 1636, is one of the best places to eat in Eryri (Snowdonia). The food is traditional Welsh fare, beautifully prepared with local ingredients. Standouts include oven-baked Anglesey lobster with prawns and crayfish Thermidor, and Shepherd's Pie made with local organic lamb. Vegetarians are well cared for with such dishes as mushroom and pine nut Stroganoff. The inn also has simple, cozy bedrooms.
This lively, modern Spanish deli/vinoteca brings a splash of Mediterranean color to the Mid-Wales coastline. The menu is served tapas-style, with whatever is on offer from the deli that day, or you could just put together an upscale picnic basket. Whatever you decide, be sure to pull up a bar stool and savor some of the excellent Spanish wines.
This family-run ice-cream parlor, café, and restaurant sits right on the seafront. House-made pizza is a specialty, or you could just join the queue for the delicious fresh gelato. Every indoor and outdoor table has panoramic views of Swansea Bay. It's in Mumbles, a resort town southwest of Swansea.
The surprise at this downtown restaurant, above the Gateway Café, is not that you've found Mexican food in Wales, but that it's so good. It's more than a little cheeky, especially in the large murals of Three Amigos and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid., which customers like to pose in front of. Although the menu only covers the basics of Mexican cuisine—quesadillas, taquitos, chimichangas, tacos, and fajitas—they're prepared with enough gusto to take them to the next level. However, authenticity takes a backseat to taste.
Attached to the Holyhead Maritime Museum on Newry Beach, this bistro café offers the best view in town from its patio. Watch yachts, catamarans, and vintage sailboats crisscross the harbor while you wait for fish chowder, slow roasted pork belly, and lamb shank in minted red wine sauce, and marvel at the Victorian engineering skill required to build the breakwater, the United Kingdom's longest. Fresh ingredients from the bistro's own farm and local fishermen factor highly in the general praise, but it's the sunset seating Thursday through Saturday that is particularly coveted.
This idyllic English countryside café, 21 km (13 miles) north of Holyhead, serves probably the best fresh cream scones with strawberries in Wales. The meat, fish, and potato pies impress as well, especially when followed by apple pie with custard, all homemade with fresh ingredients. For the full measure of Welshness, pop in mid-afternoon for traditional tea with scones. The nearby coastal path provides excellent motivation to work off the calories.
