Easter is unusually early this year. Please try and book tables with as much warning as possible: experience tells us that this is unsurprisingly one of our busiest times.

Remember that we are always open on Bank Holiday Mondays for lunch (28 March, 2 May, 30 May). We will repeat the successful New Year bank holiday all-day buffet (@£18.95 a head, £9.50 for under 10s), at least on Easter Monday and probably the others too.

September 2005

Wine Dinner at the Felin Fach Griffin

With Liz and Mike Berry of Grand Cru Wines

“Liz and Mike Berry are among my all-time wine heroes”
Ricardo van Ede, the Griffin’s Head Chef

“Many, many years ago, when I was about fifteen, I caught the wine bug. How or why I still don’t know, because none of my family drunk wine. But I started to read about wine and bought some bottles to try.

At that time there were no Dutch wine magazines so I started to read Decanter magazine and English wine books. That was when I first saw Liz Berry’s name and her shop La Vigneronne on the Old Brompton Road in London. If I remember rightly that was more or less the time of her first book on Alsace wines. So I started to write off for pricelists and they were the best ever wine bottles I could only dream of.

It was many years later before I had the chance to visit the shop. It was the first week that I had moved to the UK in September 1997. And then I came back every week to try something else. I had found my wine paradise.

But a few years ago they sold the shop and live full time in France. But they have an excellent website now (www.grandcruwines.net) and specialise in wines from the Languedoc and Roussillon. They have an amazing combination there of both top names and of the unknown.

So finally I have the opportunity to cook a dinner for my own wine heroes. They will have some of their Languedoc and Roussillon wines, as well as, hopefully some of their own wine and superb olive oil. All paired with some beautiful welsh produce and of course vegetables and autumn fruits from our own kitchen garden.”

Please call Charles or Edmund Inkin on 01874 620 111 if you are interested in securing one of
a limited number of tickets to this dinner.

Wine events combine education and disciplined decadence. For those who marginally give priority to education, our ‘Wine Days’ (£125 a day) are just the ticket. For those who see decadence as a critical element of education, I suggest booking in to our ‘Wine Dinners’.

If you haven’t stayed before, please do ask to see our rooms. A good night’s rest in a comfortable bed with soft bedding is as important a part of the Griffin as Ricardo’s Sea-Bass, Andrew’s OSB or Darren’s breakfast.

We’re extending our Sunday Sleepover to the last Sunday in April. Sunday lunch, dinner and a double room for £85 per person (£95 for a four poster). A good way to start (or finish?) the week.

He’ll probably hate me for saying it, but congratulations to our previously de facto Sous Chef, Rob Glomnicu, who Ricardo has promoted formally to be his second-in-command. Rob is such an important member of our kitchen team, mostly for his calm and skill in the kitchen, but also for bringing Maddy to Wales.