Gorse

If you tilt your head and squint a little, not a lot has changed in Tom Waters’ move to his new, permanent home in Pontcanna.

What started as a café pop up just moments away – the move could presumably have been done on foot – feels familiar in spirit. The open feel at Ground, thanks to the large kitchen window, is now an open kitchen seamlessly blended with the Gorse dining room.

Tom Waters is still a model of calm, though a larger restaurant now means he is no longer working alone in the kitchen; the weekday team is bolstered by the addition of a sous chef from another Michelin-starred kitchen. That air of calm still prevails throughout: service has an easy charm, whether you are served by front of house or Waters himself.

Gorse is an impressively assured debut

There’s an eclectic playlist – Led Zeppelin and KC and The Sunshine Band rub shoulders with Nas and Eternal, and The Strokes and Belinda Carlisle precede Bob Dylan, but it is all played at an unobtrusive, amiable level which invites, rather than interrupts, conversation among the twenty two guests.

Of course, there’s the small matter of the city’s first Michelin star, awarded recently. Although Gorse was always the front-runner for people who talk about these things, with Waters’ CV including time with Bryn Williams, Phil Howard and the leadership team at The Fat Duck, its rapid ascension within eight months is eye-catching.

“We aim to create an experience that speaks to our time and place, by celebrating the best of what our country has to offer” claims the website. That doesn’t mean zhuzhing up Welsh staples as much as taking inspiration from the country’s traditions and the wealth of its larder, much of it centring on Pembrokeshire.

A sloe gin Negroni eases us in. Then, a limpid broth: an infusion of seaweeds rope-grown in St Justinians, a cocktail of kelp, dulse and laver infused for an hour before dried local mushrooms add depth.

This is immediately evocative stuff: you can almost feel the wind in your hair and the salt on your lips as you walk along Pembrokeshire beaches. It’s an impressive start, followed by an intensely bosky mushroom parfait wrapped in the most delicate of pastry cones and finished with a juniper-infused pickling liquid.

There’s the saline pop of trout roe and then the sweet, plump Solva (Pembrokeshire, again) crab, although the listed horseradish is so far down in the mix I find it undetectable.

There are dishes which play on my mind for some days after: take lightly pickled Pembrokeshire mackerel in a sauce of wild Welsh mussels from Burry Port and lovage oil. There’s a burst of acidity from spruce vinegar, its sharpness rounded off by cultured buttermilk, a by-product of making butter. Butter which is best slathered over the milk bread which has become a bit of a local talking point, its distinctively burnished curves filling many an Instagram post.

Parsnip is not a vegetable I much care for, and not something I’d order, given the choice. Swaddled in Caws Cerwyn cheese though, it becomes something warming and reassuring: a big hug of a dish, your favourite sweater and a fireside.

This is immediately evocative stuff: you can almost feel the wind in your hair and the salt on your lips as you walk along Pembrokeshire beaches

Monkfish, lightly steamed and then roasted to a finish, is impeccably cooked, the flesh revelling in its own meatiness and topped with a plump morel.

If that’s a standout, then Brecon venison tops it. There are few elements on the sole meat course, but it’s a beautifully judged piece of skill, faultlessly rosy and grounded by the earthiness of beetroot. Again, it’s nothing more fancy than pan and oven, but the admirable execution and its lip-smackingly sticky sauce, tangy and pickle-tangy, makes this a dish to remember.

Tart rhubarb is our bridge into desserts. A base of egg yolks, cooked with caramel into fudge sweetness, tops a layer of rhubarb and lavender jam blanketed by cream infused with toasted hay, and finished with rhubarb sorbet. It’s a clever dish, gradually revealing itself as a little riot of layers, textures and temperatures.

The ‘llymru’ (a precursor of the English ‘flummery’) is the menu’s most explicit call back to Welsh traditions, originating in the practice of preserving milk with oat husks. Again, it is all about texture and contrast: the silky feel, akin to a crème caramel. Sweet, floral, bitter, silky, it is an opulent finish.

Gorse already feels fully realised, its love of Wales obvious and deep-seated without ever being strident. An impressively assured debut.

186-188 Kings Road
Pontcanna
Cardiff
CF11 9DF

April 2025