Inn at the Sticks, Llansteffan

In an attempt to describe meals in sufficient detail (sufficient to try and convince people I know what I'm talking about, that is), it sometimes feels like I'm rather unfairly picking out every fault in a dish instead of letting the minor issues fly and focusing on the overall effect. The thing is, details are easy to explain, and faults doubly so, and so it's very easy to fall in that trap of being super analytical without really getting to the heart of whether a restaurant experience overall is good or bad.

I wouldn't really know to change this - old dog, new tricks and so on - or even if it's possible, but let me say this about Inn at the Sticks in Llansteffan before we go any further: we really enjoyed our evening at this friendly - and superbly popular - gastropub on the Camarthenshire coast, and for the prices they are charging I'd recommend it to basically anyone.

Right, it's time for the details, and actually this vast bowl of mussels got all the details right. The wine and butter broth was deep and satisfying, studded with shallots (I think) and fresh parsley, and the mussels themselves were plump and fresh tasting, free of grit and full of flavour. The three of us shared this single portion as a starter, and still struggled to finish our mains.

Bread, pleasant enough itself but served with a very nice soft salted butter, came draped with a few leaves of wilted salad. No, I don't know why either but these are details - who cares if they want to serve dry salad on bread, or chopped chives on butter, we just removed them and carried on. Easy. No harm done.

Main courses varied quite a bit in portion sizes so I'll take you from the smallest to the largest. First fish and chips, pretty modest and perhaps a tad over, but was still perfectly enjoyable and the chips - huge, crunchy things - were fantastic. I'm going to ignore what they did to the peas though, as life's too short.

Next, and another victim of the Sticks' compulsion to put salad on things, was chicken kiev, hiding under about a half a kilo of rocket and parmesan. Once I'd scraped the rocket off, I was treated to a huge slab of greaseless, crisp chicken breast, which oozed garlic butter as the breadcrumbed casing was broken into. For £10.50, no complaints. Well you know, some complaints but none that really matter.

King of the portion sizes was the catch of the day - hake - which arrived as two giant fillets, literally double what you might be forgiven for expecting for £14. They were utterly perfectly cooked, moist and buttery and firm, and with gorgeous dark, crisp skins that revealed themselves after we'd scraped off a mound of buttered parsley. Actually, the parsley was a lovely accompaniment and a decently judged portion, so I've no need to be mean about it.

And that was all we could manage. A great little unpretentious dinner in a pretty Camarthenshire town, and a very early one as high season and word of mouth had clearly had quite the effect on their bookings. We turned up at 5pm (the only available table), ate extremely well for about an hour and a half, then got back to our clifftop AirBnB in time for digestifs on the verandah. The total bill came to £22.65 each plus tip, which we were more than happy to add for service so enthusiastic it bordered on cultish, like being waited on by the cast of Book of Mormon.

So why sweat the details? If you can rock up at a joint like this with £22 in your pocket and a hankering for fresh fish and chunky chips and come away happy, who needs to know about superfluous salad or weird peas? Nobody, that's who, if at the end of the evening your body is brimming with joy and butter-induced heartburn. Sticks at the Inn is the pride of Llansteffan, and they should be very proud indeed.

7/10

The Felin Fach Griffin, Brecon

The Felin Fach Griffin is a gastropub of serious pedigree. Their sister restaurant is the Gurnard's Head in Zennor, Cornwall, long one of the most well-regarded and popular spots in the West Country, and where we enjoyed a fantastic meal back in between lockdowns in 2020. Given that this particular trip to Brecon and Camarthenshire wasn't as overtly foodie as the Cornwall holiday I thought just one dinner from a team who clearly knew what they were doing would be a nice highlight of the trip, a bankable win even if the rest of the meals would be more along the lines of a National Trust egg and cress sandwich.

And so it turned out, which of course is great news for all concerned, but even I, expecting good things, was blindsided by the quality of the experience. There's a serious maturity on display at the Griffin, real technical skill when it comes to getting things like perfectly cooked, meaty cod fillet or a deliriously attractive crisp brown skin on a piece of chicken, but something else on top of that, a grasp of flavour and texture that only the very best kitchens can produce. There are lots of good gastropubs, but not many at this level, and certainly not many making the very best of local asparagus and garden herbs for £38 for 3 courses.

But let's start at the beginning. House bread was a) great and b) free, both of which as it should be. If you scan down a menu and see a variety of exciting sauces and jus on offer, then you're also going to want a decent bread to soak into them, and it's always a nice bonus if you don't have to worry about extra cost.

Value is a theme that runs through everything the Griffin do. There are cheaper restaurants, of course there always will be, but you really do seem to get a lot for your money here, whether it's the clear amount of cheffy effort that's gone into this fluffy white onion soup (with accompanying disc of Welsh rarebit) that would not look out of place anywhere with a Michelin star.

Or this beetroot tart with goats cheese and walnut pesto, yes not an entirely original combination of flavours but incredibly well executed with its delicate pastry base and interesting selection of herby dressings.

Best of the starters though was this neat little fillet of poached salmon, with a lovely smooth "horseradish buttermilk" sauce and chunks of fresh sweet pickled cucumber. The salmon had a nice firm texture, it was all seasoned well, and a couple of sprigs of dill from the garden (at least I assumed it was from the garden, as I saw some growing there) finished it all off.

Just look at that bit of cod. Examine it; breathe it in, glory in it. It was every bit as good as it looked, and alongside some choice bits of braised celeriac, fennel and the like it stood out as the kind of serious fish dish you would happily travel halfway across the country (as indeed we had, although it was only 5 minutes drive from our wonderful AirBnB in Talybont) to eat. Pescatarians need not apply, as that deliciously silky sauce underneath is actually "chicken juices" but you know what, cod and chicken *always* works.

Chicken was also worth the journey on its own. See how crisp and golden brown the skin looks? See how clear and silky the jus, see how perfectly charred the miniature garden vegetables. This came with a bowl of "crisp potatoes" (sort of like very crunchy patatas brava) but I couldn't resist trying a portion of their triple-cooked chips too so yes we may have slightly overdone it on the potatoes. Both were wonderful though, so it's hard to have any serious regrets.

Maple & hazelnut-glazed celeriac with "sweet & sour" shallots and charred asparagus was a veg-led dish that would make any vegetarian happy, and although I didn't get to try it (I was pretty full by this point thanks to two portion of potatoes) I'm reliably informed it was very good. Looks good anyway, doesn't it?

Desserts were each ordered thanks not to the main event but the accompaniment. I am far less interested in "Chocolate delice" than "Guiness ice cream" and although the chocolate was more than decent the ice cream was thick and malty and superb. Likewise, Artic roll was very nice but even better was the rhubarb sorbet parked on top, which was packed full of summery flavours.

Having a short stroll around the extensive kitchen gardens after dinner, in the late summer sun (we were very lucky with the weather in Brecon, or maybe it's always like that who knows) it occurred to me that when an operation really puts the effort in, it often creates a virtuous circle of increasingly impressive returns. Start up a kitchen garden and yes you may not save any money versus buying your veg wholesale but the changing seasons force a creative kitchen in new and unexpected directions - all of which improves the restaurant experience. And the better you get at the gardening, the better your menu gets, and so on. The Felin Fach Griffin have created their own ecosystem of seasonal flavours, and know exactly how to make the most of them.

Because yes, a kitchen garden is one thing, but the Griffin are able to work in excellent local producers (including a particularly good fishmonger by the looks of things) and end up with a menu of charm and variety, and serve the whole lot (with a couple of glasses of wine) for a very reasonable £42.50pp. And this is where the real skill lies, in sending customers away with a spring in their step and the knowledge they'd quite happily go back and do it all over again as soon as is at all possible. That requires not just a great kitchen but a charming front of house and a lovely low-beamed building in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. God, it's good to be eating out again, isn't it?

9/10

INO Gastrobar, Soho

All the game-changing restaurants in recent London history have a certain thing in common. Watever culinary fireworks or technical expertise are on display over the course of the menu at large, there's usually one "wow" moment that grabs the imagination and writes the headlines, a single dish (or combination of dishes) that stands as a flagship symbol of everything the restaurant is about. Think about the West Coast burger aesthetic demonstrated by MeatLiquor's Dead Hippy, or the East-meets-West fusion genius of Dishoom's bacon naan. These things have rightly gone down in London food history, but crucially still stand as shorthand for the restaurant, encapsulated in one dish. They're also, most importantly, still on the menus to this day.

I got as far as the very first dish at INO Gastrobar when I began to get that long-forgotten feeling of being a part of something rather special. There have been plenty of exciting new restaurants in the last year or two - astonishingly, considering that most will have been closed for a good proportion of that and those that have opened are struggling with Covid-necessary social distancing, temporary shutdowns and Brexit-forced supply line issues - but through all this somehow the creative food types of the city still manage to adapt and improve, and take the restaurant experience to new and exciting places. And there are few places as exciting, right now, as INO Gastrobar.

The dish in question, by the way, is this. Called "Kakavia", it's part deeply flavoured, extravagantly buttery fish broth, part serving of top-quality seabass (I think) sashimi, and you are instructed to dip the raw fish into the soup one bit at a time, before finally polishing off the rest of the liquid with one satisfying gulp. It's obviously brilliant, both imaginitive and genuinely (at least to London eyes) innovative but also, despite the 'sashimi' element presentation, recognisably Greek, a deconstruction of a traditional fisherman's soup still holding true to the flavour profile of the inspiration whilst pushing in exciting new directions. This is how you should start any meal at INO Gastrobar.

From here on, it was clear that everything that came out of the kitchens would be exquisitely presented, and full of summer joy. Perhaps it was a little bit unimaginitive to go with two dishes both using the catch of the day, but this carpaccio was absolutely worth an order, with nice big thick slices of raw fish and topped with "Greek salad aromas", little chunks of feta, neatly sliced cherry tomato and dried oregano.

The house bread was "hand-stretched" pitta, a neat little thing with a nice smoky crust, seasoned with herbs and salt. It's strange - and often frustrating - that restaurants still regard breadmaking as some kind of ancilliary activity when it's something they'll be serving to 90% of their customers. I'm thinking particularly of even the most well-regarded ocakbasi in town that all get their cardboardy flatbread from the same supplier. But anyway, this was very good.

Tarama was superb, an arrangement of piped star shapes topped with salty bottarga and a slow-cooked yolk to bind it all together. With the warm pitta bread it made an irresistable combination, the roe soaking into the soft of the bread like fishy butter. It didn't last long.

Next a kind of broad bean mousse thing (sorry I'm pretty sure that's right) studded with an interesting collection of miniature onions (again...), various herbs and - wonderfully - chunks of chargrilled eel. Eel is a fish you rarely see outside of specialist Japanese and Chinese restaurants, so to see it presented like this, with confidence and care, in a Mediterranean context is quite thrilling. The "fava stifado" and the onions were lovely, definitely, but the star of this show was the eel, and as soon as it was finished I wanted to order it all over again.

Charred okra, tomato and feta was a little bonus from the kitchen and though perfectly pleasant, didn't really dazzle in the way that everything else had up to this point. You can't really go wrong with feta and tomatoes, but there's not really too much to get excited about here either. Still, appreciate the effort.

Seftalies were much more my kind of thing. Minced beef kebabs wrapped in caul, I had previously only read about these things in publications such as Pit Magazine and by chefs like Big Has so was delighted to finally get to sample them. They didn't disappoint - the beef was loose and richly flavoured, and a deft touch on the grill had got them bronzed without being charred, just the right texture.

The only dish I wouldn't order again is the "funky burger". It didn't really fit well on the menu, it was way too small a mouthful of food for £6, and - most importantly - it just didn't taste of much, not in the least bit "funky" and with a strange sausagey texture suggested it had been seasoned a while ago and left to sit.

But let's not dwell on that because "wild mushrooms" was yet another absolute triumph. Hen of the woods is one of the more remarkable foraged fungi available on these isles - dense and meaty, with a satisfying squeaky "bite", if it's not one of your favourite wild ingredients then you haven't tried it, simple as that. Here the natural faintly chicken-y flavour of the mushrooms were lifted by a lemon and oregano dressing, which gave the whole thing an entirely new dimension. This is a restaurant that knows good ingredients, and how to treat them.

For such ingredients, and the knowledge to make the most of them, you of course do pay. But with 4 glasses of wine between 2 people, a negroni, more than enough bewilderingly good food, a final price including (brilliant) service of £65pp is not anywhere near unreasonable. In fact, looking at the bill again now, I'd say I would have paid a lot more for that meal and it still would have felt like value. The amount of effort, and style, and skill that had gone into all the dishes was quite something to behold.

The Italian Greyhound, Marylebone

In a handsome old building in Marylebone, life in post-covid Britain appears to be creeping back to normal. Staff scoot about in smart uniforms, the tinkle of fine glassware fills the air, and a relieved and deeply grateful public (which would include me) are settling back into a routine that God Knows I hope won't hit a brick wall again.

I had a hugely enjoyable evening at the Italian Greyhound in Marylebone - it's early days for the new kitchen, nobody running a hospitality venue is having a particularly relaxing time of it at the moment, and the quality of the ingredients and technique on display was well worth shouting about. And if everything arrived with at least two or three - sometimes more - bits and pieces too many, which tended to distract from what would otherwise been an even more impressive display of Italian classics, well, who cares. I'm still out and about and eating.

Having said all that, I actually thought the cocktails on offer had been modified from the classics for the better - putting oregano in a Negroni is a very clever move, the flavour of the herb combining incredibly well with the other bitters and aromatics. Similarly a 'Smoked Negroni' worked incredibly well, not too bonfire-y and nicely presented. Pretty big measures on both, too.

I can see the way their mind was working, providing a medley of summer herbs and veg alongside a burrata, but I think you probably needed either asparagus or broad beans, not both, and perhaps the asparagus would have been nicer just presented as whole stalks rather than chopped up into bits and doused in oil and red pepper. But you know what, these were still good ingredients cooked well, and it all got polished off.

Smoked yellowfin tuna was a revelation - I believe they smoke it themselves, and the salty, earthy flavour of the fish itself combined with a luxurious texture was like a cross between the finest carpaccio and top-end smoked salmon. The caperberries were lovely too actually although I think it would have fared just as well without the cress or celery. Definitely on the must-order list though, no question.

Octopus, tender and nicely seasoned, came with daintily-peeled cherry tomatoes and celery leaves, and I do appreciate the effort to use every bit of the vegetables across a variety of dishes. This star of this dish though wasn't the celery, or the octopus, but some cubes of potato which were just about the sweetest and softest little bombs of flavour I can remember any potato ever being. I was so impressed, I asked what they were and was told a special name which I have since completely forgotten. Sorry. I bet if you asked them they'd tell you, though.

Onto the pasta dishes, and I imagine you know the drill by now. The pasta was fantastic, just the right side of al-dente and a joy to eat. Similarly the slow-cooked lamb (shoulder I think) was full of flavour and not a hint of chewiness, it just dissolved in the mouth. And there they could have stopped and had an absolute winner, except instead they decided to cover it all with breadcrumbs and herbs which, you know, weren't horrible just a bit distracting and pointless.

Even more "busy" was ricotta ravioli which as well as containing more beautifully done pasta, all silky and buttery and with a fantastic bite, had a ratatouille tipped on top of it, courgettes and tomatoes and pine nuts. Without the ratatouille this would have been one of the great London ravioli dishes - in fact, look it was one of the great London ravioli dishes, if you ignored the ratatouille.

Last of the savouries was a superbly cooked fillet of sea bream, skin nice and crisp and flesh inside just-so, a work of art by itself that didn't at all need the "aquapezzo" (lit. crazy water) broth underneath. I am not such an extremist that I would recommend they serve the fish literally on a plate with nothing else, but the aquapezzo was rather bland and the textures rather confused the experience of eating the fish.

Ironically - and wonderfully - when it comes to desserts the Italian Greyhound have decided simplest is best. Cherry and almond tart was a fine old thing, boasting a nice crunch and with a soft sugary filling of plenty of cherries. And a raspberry & prosecco sorbet just let its ingredients absolutely sing - no weird dressing, no confusion of flavours, just two blobs of pure summer loveliness. Where was this judiciousness in the savoury courses?

It sounds like I've been moaning a lot, and I have I suppose, but sometimes it's just easier to cover everything (in the correct spirit in which it is intended) than to attempt to sugar-coat the sorbet. As you can see from the score below, I had a nice time at the Italian Greyhound, and I do recommended it, I just wish they'd have a bit more confidence in their incredibly good pasta and raw ingredients and give them a bit more space to shine in their own right. On the other hand, you could go and decide all the dishes are perfect and you like it just how it is. All opinions are available.

7/10

I was invited to the Italian Greyhound and didn't see a bill. Imagine with wine/cocktails you should expect to pay about £50/head, which is about right for somewhere this smart in Marylebone. EDIT: It's occurred to me that the first paragraph way way too harsh considering everything that followed, so I've tweaked it a bit.