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At Ynyshir in Wales, Gareth Ward Turns Fine Dining Into a 28-Course Party

At his two-Michelin-starred restaurant in North Wales, Gareth Ward turns fastidious sourcing, Japanese technique and vinyl-fueled service into a tasting menu with real pulse.

We’re partway through the 28-course tasting menu at Ynyshir, a two-Michelin-starred restaurant near the coast of North Wales, and the background music has started to amp up in speed and volume. Each course arrives at a staccato pace in tempo with the songs, which are being played on vinyl by a live DJ in the open kitchen. Everything is the best possible version of itself: a fatty bite of raw Fuentes blue tuna from Spain and A5 Wagyu from Japan, perfectly crispy Silverhill Farm duck breast in hoisin sauce, tiramisu soaked in Ethiopian coffee. It feels like a very exclusive party, especially when the disco ball eventually illuminates during one of the dessert courses. 

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“It should be fun,” Gareth Ward, who relaunched Ynyshir in its current form in 2016, tells Observer the next morning. “There’s no point in going out for dinner and it being really serious. I’m not that kind of guy. I want this to be a great experience where we all have fun, including the team. We take what we do very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously. There’s no ego, no pretentiousness. Just a group of people who are absolutely obsessed with doing what we do, and we want to share that.”

Going to Ynyshir exemplifies dining as an experience, rather than just a meal. To get there, we drove five hours from London through winding country lanes. There are approximately three sheep for each person in Wales, and most of them seem to be grazing along these exact roads. The restaurant can be found in a verdant valley not far from the town of Machynlleth, down an even narrower country lane. An enormous T. rex statue greets guests on arrival, a gift to Ward from his pal Ed Sheeran. Most diners stay on the picturesque grounds in one of the 10 bedrooms, as stylish as the rest of the property. 

Ward, 45, and his wife, Amelia Eiriksson, designed the spaces together, transforming the 15th-century building, once a country house hotel, into something singular and contemporary. There are black walls throughout the common areas, which Ward notes have “set off a trend of dark restaurants.” Fur coats hang on the walls as décor. There’s a fire pit outside branded with Ynyshir’s name. The chairs in the lounge, where drinks are served before the meal, look like something out of Game of Thrones. It’s all a reflection of Ward’s own predilections. 

“It’s not for me—to sit in restaurants with tablecloths and no music and really stuffy service,” he says. “And I love cooking for people, but I’m not doing........

© Observer