The restaurants below have been grouped into four different pricing categories:
$$$$ (over £50)
$$$ (£35 to £50)
$$ (£20 to £35)
$ (under £20)
This is for a three-course meal per person, including half a liter of wine or equivalent. Tax and tip included.
Tides Inside the elegant St David’s Hotel is an award-winning restaurant, Tides, which offers beautiful seafood and excellent local produce, in plush interior boasting superb views of the Millennium waterfront. There is a terrace for alfresco dinning in summer.
The St David’s
Hotel & Spa, Havannah Street
Tel: (029) 2045 4045.
Price: $$$$
Pearl of the Orient
Located at Mermaid Quay in Cardiff Bay, Pearl of the Orient has a wide-ranging oriental menu taking in Cantonese, Peking, Malaysian and Szechwan dishes. The food is delicious, and the décor is modern and elegant with a more spacious layout and better lighting than is often the case with many other oriental restaurants. The service is also excellent.
First floor, Mermaid Quay, Stuart Street
Tel: (029) 2049 8080.
Website:
www.thepearloftheorient.com Price: $$$
Le Gallois Cardiff-born chef Padrig Jones has made Le Gallois (’the Welshman’) a bit of an institution in the Welsh Capital, and it is easy to see why. The food is not only excellent, it is also very distinctive (there aren’t that many restaurants around serving French food with a Welsh twist!) and well presented. Add to this a relaxed atmosphere and friendly service and you are onto a winner. Booking advised.
6-10 Romilly Crescent, Canton
Tel: (029) 2034 1264.
Website:
www.legallois-ycymro.com Price: $$$
Benedicto’s Conveniently located right in the city center, close to the New Theater, Benedicto’s proposes an Italian influenced menu featuring seasonal ingredients from all over the world. The surroundings are elegant, the atmosphere relaxed, and the service attentive and efficient. Good affordable house wine. No smoking restaurant.
4 Windsor Place
Tel: (029) 2037 1130.
Price: $$-$$$
Brazz Tucked away in the Millennium Center, this brasserie serves straightforward and unpretentious British and modern European food in relaxed surroundings. The staff is very friendly and good at making guests feel at home. It is a great place both for lunch and dinner, and some nights there is live music entertainment.
Wales Millennium Center, Bute Place
Tel: (029) 204 59000.
Website:
www.brazz.co.uk Price: $$
Thai HouseThis excellent Thai restaurant has been in Cardiff since 1985 and offers delicious food and friendly, professional service by staff wearing traditional Thai dress. The restaurant does fish and meat dishes equally well, and the curries are fantastic. The house specialty, however, is fillet of salmon and broccoli marinated in a red curry paste and steamed in banana leaves.
3-5 Guildford Crescent, Churchill Way
Tel: (029) 2038 7404.
Website:
www.thaihouse.bizPrice: $$
Dorothy’s ’The best chippy in town’, many locals will tell you. Definitely a Cardiff institution (it’s been going for over 50 years), so do give it a go. Fish and chips (the cod is excellent), chicken curry, fries, the usual suspects... Perfect after a night on the town.
39-40 Caroline Street
Tel: (029) 2064 5813.
Price: $
Nightlife:For its size, Cardiff offers a vast range of nightlife options. The city’s club scene is innovative and constantly changing, with a wide choice of venues. There is a huge choice of bars, cafe-bars and restaurants - traditional, ’trendy’ or both at once. All the action happens in the city center and at Cardiff Bay. The weekend nightlife scene centers around St Mary Street with its wide choice of bars, pubs and clubs. Bohemian-style Mill Lane, otherwise known as the ’Cafe Quarter’, offers a good choice of eating options and bars. Gay venues are generally to be found in Charles Street and elsewhere on the city center’s southern fringe. Wednesday night is busy, when the university crowds descend on the town for student nights at various venues. Fridays and Saturdays are the traditional evenings for painting the town red. Several bars and clubs, however, are making a concerted effort to liven things up during the rest of the week, with cheap drinks, late licenses, live theater, band nights and poetry sessions.
Pubs and bars are normally licensed for the sale of alcohol Monday to Saturday 1100-2300 and Sunday 1200-2230, but many places, particularly in the city center, now have late licenses and stay open until 0200 or even as late as 0400 every day of the week. Nightclubs remain open until at least 0200 and many close as late (or early) as 0600, depending on the venue and day of the week. Casinos usually close between 0300 and 0400. All casinos and some bars and clubs may refuse admission to those less than 18 years, which is the legal drinking age. Some venues do not admit anyone under 21 years.
A good source of detailed information is available online at
What’s On in Cardiff (website:
www.metroplex.co.uk), which has links to most clubs, cinemas and other entertainment options.
Bars: It is said that ’there are more Brains in Cardiff’ than elsewhere and
The Old Arcade, 14 Church Street, an old-fashioned pub serving food and the locally-made Brain’s beer, is a good place to test this theory. A wide choice of traditional beers and food is also available close by at the
Owain Glyndwr, also in Church Street, opposite St John’s Church. A more unusual and eclectic mix of beers and lagers can be enjoyed at
Waterguard, Britannia Park. In the bay area,
The Wharf, 121 Schooner Way, Atlantic Wharf, has good views across the water and cheap food, while live music (and great food) can be found at
The Packet, Bute Street.
Ba Orient, Mermaid Quay, is one of Cardiff’s most stylish bars, serving imaginative cocktails and delicious dim sum. For a livelier evening, try
Zync, 63 St Mary Street, in the Café Quarter, a bar/club crossover with live band events. Also on St Mary Street at number 41 is
Soda Bar, a chic watering hole open Thursday to Saturday only.
The Old Monk, St Mary Street, is a popular and trendy venue offering excellent value drinks and good food, while
Bar Essential, 35 Windsor Place, is the choice of the city’s young professionals and visiting businesspeople. The
Model Inn, 14-15 Quay Street, is a lively and enjoyable restaurant-bar.
Clubs: Clwb Ifor Bach, 11 Womanby Street (website:
www.clwb.net), is considered one of the ’coolest’ clubs in Cardiff. It is situated over three floors and is one of the few clubs to offer action throughout the week. It showcases an eclectic mix of live music and DJs. The Wednesday night mix of new music, funk, Britpop and indie music is hugely popular. Other mainstream venues include
Liquid, Imperial Gate, St Mary Street, and
Creation, Park Place. Cardiff’s biggest gay/mixed venue is
Club X, 35 Charles Street.
Housed in the cavernous UCI building on Atlantic Wharf, Cardiff Bay,
Evolution is the biggest club in Cardiff and offers a menu of mainstream house, dance and party anthems. A shuttle bus collects partygoers from the New Theater in the city, every 15 minutes from 2115. Wednesday night is student night, with house and party anthems. Fridays are for over 18s and Saturdays are for the over 20s. Only those in smart clubbing dress will be admitted.
Live Music: Live music is easy to find in many bars around the city - Cardiff has a very active music scene. Entry is often free and where admission is charged it is rarely expensive.
Cafe Jazz, in the Sandringham Hotel, St Mary Street (tel: (029) 2038 7026; website:
www.cafejazzcardiff.com), is home to the Welsh Jazz Society and hosts top local performers as well as international acts. As well as at the excellent
Clwb Ifor Bach (see
Clubs), live acts can be found at
The Point (tel: (029) 2046 0873; website:
www.thepointcardiffbay.com), on Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff Bay;
Barfly (tel: 0870 907 0999; website:
www.barflyclub.com), Kingsway; and the
University Students Union, Park Place (although many events are restricted to NUS card-holders only) (tel: (029) 2078 1400; website:
www.cardiffstudents.com). For really big acts,
Cardiff International Arena, Mary Ann Street (tel: (029) 2022 4488), and occasionally the
Millennium Stadium, Westgate Street (tel: (029) 2082 2040; website:
www.millenniumstadium.com), are the prime venues.
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