Gorse

Gorse opened in 2023 in a converted Pontcanna terrace house; in February 2025, chef-owner Tom Waters was awarded the first Michelin star ever given to a restaurant inside Cardiff. Waters, previously of Ynyshir (the two-star Welsh restaurant in Powys), moved the project closer to the Welsh capital specifically to prove that serious restaurant ambition could be sustained in a city centre rather than a rural retreat.

The cooking is aggressively ingredient-led. Waters runs a network of named Welsh producers — salt-marsh lamb from the Gower, native oysters from the Menai Strait, Welsh Black beef from a specific Brecon farm, laverbread from a Gower harvester — and the menu is constructed around what arrives that morning. A signature seaweed-butter-poached turbot with laverbread-and-cider-vinegar beurre blanc has been on the menu across every season. A salt-marsh lamb tasting (rump, shoulder braise, kidney skewer) is the autumn main.

Three tasting menu lengths are offered — four courses (£45, lunch only), seven (£75), and ten (£100). The pairing flight is £55 / £65 / £85 depending on menu length and leans heavily on English sparkling, Loire whites, Ancre Hill Welsh still reds, and a short Rhône section. Waters's own cellar has a respectable short-vertical of white Burgundy.

The dining room seats thirty — converted from two terrace-house ground-floor rooms into a single open space with a long bar counter facing the open kitchen. Service is young, informed and genuinely collaborative with the kitchen. Waters typically works the pass and greets every table during the dessert course.

Gorse is Wales's first true 'impress clients' dinner in Cardiff — the Michelin star is fresh and therefore news, the Welsh-produce story gives the host an easy narrative, and the ten-course tasting with pairings runs the evening at exactly the pace a client dinner needs.