food&drink reviews
THE BOTANIST 10 Church Street, Cardiff.
029 2013 0053 /
thebotanist.uk.com
Cardiff, while inside the floral laden restaurant is just as breathtaking. There’s even a bandstand for live music.
If my family find something we like, we’ll pick it again – this is why I chose The Botanist for my birthday. So for starter we chose what we had before: calamari (with créme fraiche and sweet chilli dip) and salt and pepper onion petals (with créme fraiche dip); even writing this now is making my mouth water for them.
The signature, famous hanging kebabs, which my mother and sister had, are food theatre. Pour the sauce at the top and, through a little hole, it snakes its way down the kebab dripping deliciousness on to your ‘properly seasoned’ chips (or swap to chunky or sweet chilli chips for an extra quid).
As it was a special occasion, I wanted to treat myself – read: stuff myself – so having had a famous kebab before I opted for the Hot option of the Botanist Boards: five small dishes (a main for one, or starter to share). My favourite of these was between the Cumberland scotch egg – if a scotch egg makes you think buffets or birthday parties, then stop it, they’re not crispily breadcrumbed like this – and baked camembert with prosciutto, gooey goodness scooped up with a chunk of well-made bread. The other dishes were patatas bravas, chicken skewers and whole garlic prawns.
On the cocktail side, I’ve started drinking them, attracted by their inherent campness, so I chose a Pink Poppy Punch (again, maybe because of the camp sounding name) which was fruitily sweet. I imagine it’s easy to drink too many. I’ve never had an espresso martini, either, so wanted to try one; I’ve tried one now.
Cardiff’s branch of The Botanist opened in February 2020, but that bit of bad timing didn’t seem to harm its eventual popularity. Equal parts restaurant and cocktail bar, there’s even a rooftop terrace where you can enjoy one of The Botanist’s ‘Fruit & Floral’ or ‘Fresh & Herbaceous’ cocktails while watching the sun go down over
GROUND
The staff are great: you get the feeling that The Botanist is a nice place to work, making for happy and friendly service. As well as good food in a restaurant, a welcoming reception will make you want to return.
CHRIS WILLIAMS
15 Pontcanna Street, Cardiff. 029 2116 7850 /
groundbakery.co.uk
It’s rare for me to have dragged my sorry carcass out of bed this early on a Sunday, but when it comes to Ground, it’s the early bird that gets the pain au chocolat. It’s not even 9am and already the natives are loitering outside with intent, hankering for their high-class croissant and coffee fix. The instant the doors open, every table is taken.
So what’s all the fuss about? Well, despite the inauspicious timing of its opening in early 2020, former {Masterchef} contestant Tom Simmons’ restaurant Thomas, on the site of the former Cameo Club, has rapidly garnered an excellent reputation. Ground, a few doors down, is an “artisanal boulangerie and speciality coffee house” occupying the premises of a vacuum cleaner repair shop that had somehow stood vacant for more than 20 years.
If it’s Sunday brunch you’re after, this is the place to go. One of our party laughs in the face of millennial cliché by ordering smashed avocado and hot flaked salmon on sourdough, and is handsomely rewarded with what arrives. Two others rave about their rich, paprika-infused house beans and perfectly poached spherical eggs. I, meanwhile, am reduced to inarticulate mumbles of ecstasy by a combination of eggs, roast chestnut mushrooms, butter-drenched toast and two hefty hunks of overnight bacon. The latter – phenomenally tender, but fried crispy on the outside – are an out-of-body experience with every mouthful.
From our table, we have a great view of the kitchen/bakery, marvelling at the scales weighed down with indecent quantities of butter and sugar and at the industry of the staff. Trays laden with baked and bready treats whizz past regularly. Stand up at the wrong moment and you run the risk of getting taken out by a passing trolley full of almond croissants – but there are much worse ways to go.
BEN WOOLHEAD
SMOKIN’ GRIDDLE 86 Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff.
029 2063 9251 /
smokingriddle.co.uk
The latest arrival on Cardiff’s increasingly competitive burger scene promises fast food style fare for the Five Guys crowd – but how does Smokin’ Griddle stack up against established heavy hitters like Hoof and the nearby Ansh?
Initially, not all that well. Orders are taken via QR code rather than by staff, with COVID blamed for the absence of physical menus – although we’re handed copies on arrival – and on the website there’s no chocolate milkshake option. (Just ask for vanilla and they’ll know what to do, we’re told.) As for my Spicy burger, a scattering of jalapenos deliver a tickle of heat, but the patty, neither especially thick or juicy, is sufficiently smashed for half to immediately fall out, and at £9 feels overpriced.
Much better is the “alternative burger”, a lip-smacking combo of southern fried chicken strips, BBQ pulled pork and cheese: for £6.50, significantly better value for money. The mac & cheese is authentically glow-in-the-dark orange, and spice-seasoned fries work well with a tub of peri mayo. (Others have reported a surfeit of chips, but we make relatively short work of them. Make of that what you will.) The aforementioned chocolate milkshake, meanwhile, has the delightfully gloopy consistency of quicksand.
As all of this might imply, comparisons with somewhere like Ansh are actually a bit wide of the mark: this is more middle-class McDonald’s, right down to the unnecessary amount of cardboard and paper waste each meal generates. But Smokin’ Griddle has its own merits – not least a cheerful and welcoming front-of-house crew, generous opening hours and a home delivery service – and, if they could iron out the ordering oddities and revisit some of the price points, it’d be a more appetising prospect.
BEN WOOLHEAD 55
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