Annwn - Early Spring 2022
It’s still only 15 weeks since we opened the doors at Annwn and welcomed our first guests, and what an exciting journey its been so far.
The hours have been long, but we are loving the development of the restaurant and the amazingly positive feedback from guests makes it all so worthwhile
At Annwn we pride ourselves on staying local, you won’t find ingredients from afar here.
With so much incredible produce on our doorstep in Pembrokeshire, why would we even think of looking further afield?
Take our kelp for example, we pick it from the shoreline a few miles from the restaurant by hand and then dry and age it on site for anything up to as long as three years to develop the flavour.
Then there is our siphon weed oil, which we use in an emulsification or dressings, after some experimentation last year.
We are also learning and always trying new ideas, the siphon wrack weed is like truffle infused with essence of the sea, absolutely sublime !
The quiet before the storm - Its almost service time.
The end of 2021 was a busy time for us here at Annwn and 2022 is already even busier with bookings into October 2022 being taken.
We are a team of just two at the moment, and even though we only have four tables and up to ten or twelve covers a night, with the food preparations, keeping the kitchen and equipment immaculately clean, and then lots of legally required food safety paperwork, that has to be done daily, it is pretty tough going.
There’s not much time for taking photos of dishes during service as we always put our guests first, and social media posts are necessarily a bit sporadic.
We have a simple setup that over time we will enhance the comfort of this small, warm, relaxed, and friendly environment.
We plan to take on a couple of staff this late spring as we are going to need help as we progress and push Annwn further.
I want to develop more dishes and recipes as we push the boundaries of Welsh and British ingredients to new levels, and free up some time for photos and enhancing our social media presence.
Improvement is always the goal, but we take things slowly, stay grounded and will never compromise on the love that goes into every plate.
There’s not much time for taking photos of dishes during service as we always put our guests first.
An amazing discovery late last year and into this year has been the wonderful Hen Gymro grains, an ancient Welsh wheat grain. We cook these slowly in a highly flavoured onion stock for a long time, we then finish the grains with leeks from the raised beds, leeks that have been preserved in aged apple vinegar (15yrs old), Dolwerdd blue sheep cheese, crispy leek roots in a coating of rye and an onion sauce.
Amazingly comforting and extremely moreish. This dish will now be replaced by our homegrown celeriac, which naturally “clamped” in our raised bed over winter.
At the heart of all our dishes we strive to be unique and true to our Welsh roots, and always simple, humble and about as unpretentious as you will find.
The ingredients are the stars, we just help them shine bright.
We are now delighted to announce that we put together a small wine list of English and Welsh wines, carefully selected to pair with our dishes and to suit a range of palettes.
We have been tasting samples when we have had the time and saved some money to do so.
Some UK wines are really very good and they sit well paired with our dishes, as you would expect. Two of our most favored sparkling wines actually come from the very local area - Hebron and Velfrey, two stunning sparkling wines which are just so good!
Halltu Oen - Cured and air dried lamb
Our cured and dry-aged lamb leg is now not just available as part of our dinner menu, you can buy it as a whole leg and we will be selling it sliced soon.
Any orders for this wonderful product have to be made in advance so we can air dry it for the required 100 days.
So if you want some for Christmas 2022 then orders need to be taken in August.
We already have orders for this fantastic product, but there won’t be many made per annum as we also need the space to keep this speciality on our menu.
Our latest menu can be found in the link at the top of this page or in the menu tab, bookings for the next few months are steady but we do have availability for this unique and immersive dining or foraging and dining experience.
Thanks for reading and stay safe - Diolch
Email - matt@fishingandforagingwales.co.uk
Telephone - 07308313107/07515380169
Matt Powell