A Deep Dive Into Ynyshir: One Of Britain's Best And Most Controversial Restaurants

London boasts the lion's share of Britain's world-class restaurants. For anyone living in the nation, this comes as little surprise; England's capital has a habit of hoarding the best things for itself. This made it all the more stunning when Ynyshir, a Welsh restaurant located near Snowdonia National Park, was announced as the best restaurant in the United Kingdom at the 2022 National Restaurant Awards. The restaurant repeated the feat in 2023, fending off the likes of London's Da Terra, The Ledbury, and Bouchon Racine.

Ynyshir's motto is: "Ingredient led, flavour driven, fat fuelled, protein obsessed." While sparse, this information tells you just about everything you need to know about the food at the two Michelin-starred restaurant. Head chef Gareth Ward's cooking is both magnificent and unrelenting.

While the food has won near-universal praise, Ynyshir's equally intense approach to the dining experience has resulted in some unsavory headlines. Accusations of bullying have even been cast at Ward by some of the restaurant's clientele, leaving many wondering whether Ynyshir is the pinnacle of Britain's restaurant scene, or just another warning against near-fanatical approaches to fine dining.

Ynyshir's head chef Gareth Ward got his start in professional kitchens almost by accident. Like many at the age of 16, Ward was not enjoying school. In response, heeded his uncle's advice and got a job working in a kitchen. He began his career at Seven Stars, a pub and kitchen located in North East England.

After falling in love with cooking, Ward went on to work at several restaurants. The Michelin-starred Hambleton Hall was among the most formative, as Ward explained to Great British Chefs, "I ended up at Hambleton Hall in Rutland, working under Aaron Patterson. It's where I learnt how to cook and appreciate ingredients. The military precision the kitchen followed completely changed my life. Everyone has their opinions on Michelin but one thing it does do is set a standard for restaurants to work to, and after working at Hambleton Hall I knew I never wanted to be in a non-starred kitchen ever again." After Hambleton Hall, Ward completed a stint at the Restaurant Sat Bains, where he learned how to build dishes, create menus, and think critically about food.

Ynyshir was a respected hotel restaurant before Ward's arrival. It even received a Michelin star prior to Ward's employment there, then last it. Nonetheless, Ward's impact when he arrived in 2013 was immediately felt. The restaurant soon earned back its Michelin star and quickly began building a reputation as one of the most exciting restaurants in the U.K.

Gareth Ward had a reputation for being the archetypal aggressive chef. When he started at Ynyshir in 2013, he brought this disposition with him. This ultimately did not bode well with staff or diners.

In an interview with Wales Online, Ward said, "I had been schooled in kitchens where shouting and swearing was the normal way of working. On top of this when I came here I had been going through a tough time in my personal life ... I was so stressed out ... It reached a point that I was in the kitchen with no staff, a list of jobs to do and food to get out and no one to help me. At the end of the service I looked in the mirror and knew it was because of me, because of the way I was. I knew I had to change."

By many accounts, Ward has changed. Colleagues, friends, and acquaintances often describe him as a gentle giant who is well-liked and respected in the industry. Some customers, however, dispute this view. Donna Southby — a guest at Ynyshir in April 2023 — told The Guardian in that Ward verbally abused her the morning after her dinner. The team at Ynyshir denies these accusations and claims that Southby herself was rude to staff.

Topping the prestigious National Restaurant Awards two years in a row and boasting two Michelin stars is just the tip of the iceberg at Ynyshir; the restaurant has collected awards with unnerving regularity in recent years. Perhaps most prestigious are the five AA rosettes it has earned. These awards are given to esteemed restaurants and hotels within the U.K.

Individually, chef Gareth Ward has also been showered with plaudits, including being named the U.K.'s 2022 Chef of the Year at The Staff Canteen Awards, which focus on the hospitality industry. While individual recognition is appreciated, Ward is most proud of the teamwork that secured Ynyshir's place atop the National Restaurant Awards. 

Ward revealed as much in a conversation with The Staff Canteen, in which he expressed his shock at winning two years in a row. "I couldn't believe it, it's such an honour and I was blown away," he said. "It's a huge team effort for present and past -– there are some absolutely incredible people who have gone through the doors at Ynyshir who have helped to make it what it is now and you can't do it without them."

Lasting between 4 and 5 hours and encompassing 30 dishes, dinner at Ynyshir is a momentous event. This bucks the U.K.'s current gastronomic trend of shorter, economical, and informal tasting menus.

Not everyone is a fan of extended-tasting menus. In fact, many notable critics, including The New York Times' Pete Wells and The Observer's Jay Rayner, have dismissed them as exhausting marathons. Yet, Gareth Ward dives headfirst into the immersive format, further deepening the experience through the addition of music curated by a live DJ. Other means of sensory immersion are also employed such as filling the restaurant with birch smoke.

The loud music, low lights, and theatrical flare are enjoyed by all diners. But in Ynyshir's defense, every guest is given notice regarding the restaurant's quirks, as Ward explained to Restaurant Online: "There's nothing we don't tell you — we send five emails that say we take no dietaries, the music's loud, this is what you're going to get but still people turn up and go 'what is this?' But we try our best to change their minds — 99% of the time they come away saying it was amazing."

According to Ynyshir's head chef himself, Gareth Ward's cooking is led by flavor. He underscored this in an interview with Four Magazine: "The food that we have on the menu — it's all about flavour, that's what's most important. For me, you shouldn't waste calories. If you're going to go out and spend a fortune on food, it's got to taste absolutely amazing — not just look pretty and taste like nothing. It's got to be super, super tasty, with the best ingredients you can find. I want people coming here to eat the best ingredients, and I keep it very simple."

Simple does not mean understated. Ward has built a reputation for crafting bold dishes and the first one served to every customer at Ynyshir is a prime example. The dish, "Not French Onion Soup," is a version of miso soup that features seaweed, fermented fruit juice, and vegetables pickled in shiso vinegar. Like nearly all of Ward's best work, this dish fuses together the flavors and ingredients of both Asia and Wales to create a gobsmacking mouthful. The rest of Ynyshir's menu lives up to the billing, through dishes like duck mousse served with birch sap and smoked eel.

Dinner at Ynyshir does not come cheap. At the time of writing, prices start at £375 per person. For comparison, the tasting menu at De Terra — which came third in the National Restaurant Awards – costs £225.

Ynyshir also offers a selection of rooms for guests to stay in. Those located in the house cost £290 per night. Newer rooms built in the garden cost £590 per night. Once wine is added into the equation, one night can quickly cost thousands of pounds, a fact that has not been lost on those that visit.

Gareth Ward is of the opinion that this is the cost of excellence; a notion he highlighted to the Restaurant Online: "We are using the best ingredients in the world, there is no expense spared. I was charging £350 when we were a one-star restaurant because that's what it's worth ... Take it or leave it; I'm not going to hold a gun to your head and force you to come and eat here but that's how much it is. People think we're millionaires and I tell them that they're having a laugh, they'd hate to have the overheads that we have. We're a 20-cover restaurant in 14 acres of land, it doesn't make sense what we do." A slew of overwhelmingly positive reviews suggests that even at £375, Ynyshir is worth it.

Ynyshir's menu is dominated by meat. Like everything else, this meat is of the highest quality. This includes foods like wagyu beef, Iberico pork, and Welsh lamb.

In recent years, seafood has become just as prominent as meat on the menu. Ward highlighted this to Four Magazine: "I've always been a big meat man; this restaurant was ninety percent meat at one point, but I'm really enjoying fish — raw fish. We've got the minus-eighty freezers, and just freezing something down to minus-eighty and then using it is mind-blowing. The sweetness and the tenderness of the fish — you just don't have to cook it anymore. A lot of our fish is completely raw."

Ultramodern technologies do not have a monopoly on meat and fish preparation. Ward makes consistent use of open-fire cooking, barbecuing everything from pork to prawns. While laboratory-grade equipment features in Ynyshir's kitchen, diners can rest assured that Ward and his team never trade substance for style when it comes to cooking meat and fish.

It is by no means novel for a Michelin-starred restaurant to claim its menu is ingredient-led. Yet, few restaurants back this statement up as much as Ynyshir does. Only the finest ingredients in the world are used throughout the restaurant, including the aforementioned Iberico pork and wagyu beef. Ynyshir also makes great use of the natural bounty closer to home. The restaurant makes a point of foraging and serving some local ingredients that, while lesser-known, are of impeccable quality.

Gareth Ward highlighted how the team at Ynyshir maximizes Wales' natural bounty in an interview with Great British Chefs: "This year we harvested 200 kilograms of wild garlic in one afternoon, turning it into pickles, oils, powders and vinegars, which we can then use all year. We harvested 750 litres of birch water from the local birch trees in three weeks, boiling it down to create just 4 litres of this incredible tasting birch syrup. We make everything we can using elderflowers – that's my favourite time of year – and then when elderberries come in we preserve them as well. It's all about adapting to your environment."

Although it's hard to believe it now, some of Gareth Ward's years at Ynyshir were anything but a success. After taking the restaurant in a new direction in 2016, Ward found people unwilling to commit themselves to the Ynyshir experience. 

This was an incredibly difficult period, as he explained to The Staff Canteen: "It was soul destroying. We used to go weeks without feeding anybody. It was awful. But I always knew that it was a sleeping giant from the moment I met it ... I had to keep convincing my business partner that this was going to work ... We were on the brink, and then it was like, 'bang,' and it just exploded. Then we had a craziness for a couple of months, then Covid came."

Unable to serve in-house during the pandemic, Ward did what many other leading chefs did and began crafting dine-at-home meal kits. In true Ynyshir style, these were not for the faint of palate or wallet. Ynyshir at Home, a meal set for two, cost £120 and included dishes such as Singapore chili crab and shawarma spiced Welsh lamb leg. The restaurant also sold takeout on Sundays. Thankfully, this was enough to see Ynyshir through the pandemic.

Many chefs might be coy when asked which dish is their favorite, but not Gareth Ward. The answer he gave to Restaurant Online was typically honest and straightforward. It detailed his love for the restaurant's char siu pork dish: "It took me seven years to get it right. It's a piece of pork marinated and served in a little broth of the bones and trying to get those two things to work and be mind blowing has been one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life."

The pork itself comes from Black Iberian pigs, animals known for producing nutty-tasting meat with abnormally high-fat content. These characteristics make it perfectly suited to Ward's fat and flavor-forward style of cooking.

Before being served the pork is brined, water-bathed, and marinated before being charred on a barbecue in a process that took hundreds of attempts to master. The end result is a masterful dish celebrated and remembered by guests and critics alike.

One of the major criticisms leveled at Ynyshir is that the restaurant does not cater to any allergies or dietary requirements. The same food is served to everybody at the same time with no exceptions. Of course, this means that many people with allergies or dietary requirements cannot dine at Ynyshir. 

Gareth Ward is unapologetic about this approach, saying to The Staff Canteen: "The thing about Ynyshir is that we do our own thing, it's very much ours. We don't follow any trends, we don't follow any traditions, we don't follow any normal ways of running a restaurant ... No-one can stop us. For me, that's what food is all about. I love music, I love food and I love having a great time with friends. That's what Ynyshir is all about."

Ynyshir has not always had such a hard line on allergies. Before the Coronavirus pandemic, guests could request menu changes based on dietary requirements by calling the restaurant before they visited. Unfortunately, there are reports that these requirements weren't always taken into account. For example, one gluten-intolerant reviewer from 2019 claims they were served croutons at the beginning of their meal.

In 2017, Ynyshir only employed 11 full-time staff (including Gareth Ward). Although this number has probably risen, the restaurant is still known for relying on a small, tight-knit team. One of the reasons for this is Ward's abandonment of traditional restaurant structures where chefs stay in the kitchen. At Ynyshir, the food is served by those who cooked it. There is also no sommelier; all staff have sufficient understanding to recommend drinks to complement the food. 

While setting provides the means for bonding, the process starts with recruitment. This is something Ward takes very seriously. Over time, he has learned to prioritize mentality above skills, for reasons he explained to Wales Online: "I can teach you how to cook and teach you how to taste, but I can't teach you how to be a human being. And why wouldn't you want to work in a place full of lovely people, especially when you're with them 16 hours a day – and most of them live with each other as well, so they're with each other 24 hours a day."

As the only restaurant in Wales with two Michelin stars, Ynyshir is leading the way for fine dining in the country. While these stars give other restaurant owners something to aspire to, Ynyshir's unique approach to both cooking and hospitality has had a much greater impact on Wales' culinary scene. This is underscored by several new Welsh restaurants and chefs that have modeled their approach on Ynyshir.

Chief amongst those is Nathan Davies, who was previously a head chef at Ynyshir. He now runs SY23, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the coastal town of Aberystwyth that was given the "The Michelin Opening of the Year Award in 2022.

Davies revealed the impact Ynyshir has on new restaurants in the area when interviewed by Restaurant Online: "Ynyshir was the only restaurant around here to have any ambition to do anything in terms of quality or experience, rather than just feeding people. SY23 was a new concept to the area that followed this vision."

For his part, Gareth Ward is immensely excited by Wales's developing, and increasingly unique, food scene. To make matters even better, this continued success is coinciding with a burgeoning interest in Welsh cuisine; a combination which may just catapult the tiny nation's culinary scene to previously unseen heights.