Review: Annwn, Narberth

Annwn might be a bit of a marmite restaurant: some will love it, others will leave bemused. For the record, we loved it, but that’s because it ticks all our culinary buttons. Chef Matt Powell cares deeply about place and provenance, loves using obscure and unfamiliar local and foraged ingredients, isn’t scared of strong flavours, and doesn’t finesse the soul of the ingredients out of every dish with intricate technique and presentation.

The dining room feels a bit unsure of itself, if I’m honest. It’s a big, modern space with a modern, workmanlike open kitchen and stark while walls. Then the dining furniture and the scatter of decorative items are all natural, wooden, rustic and appealingly wabi-sabi. But they sit around the open, white space like folks at a party that’s not-really-our-kinda-thing. Still, ’twas warm and comfy on a filthy spring evening and chef Matt talked us through the menu with clear passion and lots of local detail.

We opened with a bread course that included splendid chunks of aged dry-cured mutton, wild garlic flowers, seedheads and leaves all individually pickled or fermented, wonderful fresh butter with mutton fat whipped through it and lovely little floury breads cooked on a stone “planc”. The first starter felt like a real statement of intent; oysters from the last remaining local oyster beds, turned into a creamy mousse that captured all the beautiful flavour. At least three different coastal vegetables and three different seaweeds served with it, all brightly fresh and meant for swiping through the mousse, along with a scrunchy little sea lettuce cracker. You can’t get much more Pembrokeshire than that.

The other two starters were a potato dish with celeriac cream, tasty and a nice use of local and seasonal veg, and then a very slow-cooked egg yolk in a wonderful and extremely intense fungi sauce with pickled chanterelles on top. Both starters were good without being great. Next up was the meat course, chunks of salt marsh mutton, slowly roasted to a beautiful softness inside with wickedly crisped edges packed with flavour. The seaweed-enhanced reduction was absolute glossy perfection and enriched the mutton even more. This was mighty meat with unashamedly powerful flavour.

The actual main course, then, was the locally caught brill. The fish itself was a beauty, so softly cooked that it swooned winsomely on the fork. The dark reduction with this one, rich from roast fish bones, was the same mirror-like glossiness as the mutton gravy, and so good with the fish. There was a great side-serving as well, of a brown crab mousse that was as powerful as any sea urchin dish I’ve ever tried, and also wonderful scoffed with the fish. Probably the star dish, appropriately.

Fermented crab apple sorbet was a lovely refresher, like a hit of excellent cider with both high tangy notes and a deeply funky barnyard bass. Then my favourite dessert; a simple scoop of meadowsweet curds, covered with about the same amount of a thick, local honey. I’ve never been given such a wonderfully powerful hit of meadowsweet, with plenty of the somewhat medicinal tang that it can have, warmed up and sweetened by the fragrant honey. The main dessert was both an extremely pretty plate and also very light and edible, just what’s needed after a big tasting menu. Malty little savory chocolate twigs, a lovely powdery birch sap meringue (?!?), and an eggshell filled with deliciously lush and slightly jammy rosehip custard. The little leaf was made from crab apple, the cherry from a sweet-tart berry jelly.

The tasting menu at Annwn was £150 each, and I enjoyed the evening immensely; a far more intimate experience than even most other small fine-dining restaurants. They’ve bravely gone with a wine list that is entirely British from top-to-bottom, but it was also revelatory with a superb glass of full-flavoured Welsh rose from Aberaeron and a couple of pinot noirs from an Essex winery that would have blind-tasted very well next to an awful lot of decent Burgundy.

You should go and visit Annwn, you’ll not have a meal like it any time soon.