• Home
  • Restaurants in Wales
    • Cardiff
    • Abergavenny
    • Brecon
    • Merthyr Tydfil
    • Newport
    • Swansea
    • Vale of Glamorgan
  • Restaurants in England
    • Bath
    • Birmingham
    • Bradford-on-Avon
    • Bristol
    • Cheltenham
    • Hereford
    • Liverpool
    • London
  • Restaurants in Spain
  • Recipes

Calendar

January 2021
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Dec    

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • December 2013

Categories

  • Abergavenny
  • Bath
  • Birmingham
  • Bradford-on-Avon
  • Brecon
  • Bridgend
  • Bristol
  • Cardiff
  • Cheap Eats
  • Cheap Eats
  • Cheltenham
  • Deliveries and Takeaways
  • Hereford
  • In Praise of Pork
  • Liverpool
  • London
  • Merthyr Tydfil
  • Newport
  • Powys
  • Reading
  • Recipes
  • Restaurants in England
  • Restaurants in Spain
  • Restaurants in Wales
  • Rhondda Cynon Taf
  • Swansea
  • Thoughts
  • Uncategorized
  • Vale of Glamorgan
  • Home
  • Restaurants in Wales
    • Cardiff
    • Abergavenny
    • Brecon
    • Merthyr Tydfil
    • Newport
    • Swansea
    • Vale of Glamorgan
  • Restaurants in England
    • Bath
    • Birmingham
    • Bradford-on-Avon
    • Bristol
    • Cheltenham
    • Hereford
    • Liverpool
    • London
  • Restaurants in Spain
  • Recipes
Milkwood Cardiff
Cardiff . Restaurants in Wales

Milkwood, Pontcanna, Cardiff

On January 10, 2018 by The Plate Licked Clean

Some menus just pull you right in, the words swimming sharply into bold type even as they whisper sweet nothings to your appetite.

Hush, my sweet.


Have no fear.


You’re in safe hands.

On a damp autumnal evening, there’s a lovely seasonal feel to the menu at Milkwood. French influences are writ large; boudin blanc and terrine are familiar, though artichoke a la barigoule has me scurrying for my culinary dictionary- but filtered through a very local and Welsh sensibility. The menu drips with Welsh beef. Welsh lamb. Laver bread. Scallops. Sewin. The intriguingly hyper-local mention of ‘Bute Park salad’. The menu is verging on the tiny- five starters, four mains- but give me ‘well-considered and lovingly executed’ over pretentiously overambitious every time.

A cosy little place, this, in an affluent suburb. (The soundtrack- Bowie, LCD Soundsystem, Purple Rain- is instantly welcome. Even preening pop irritants The 1975 can’t ruin my mood.)  If there is such a thing as a sure bet in a notoriously risky business, Milkwood must be it: the team behind local stars The Potted Pig and Porro knows how to succeed in Cardiff.

I’m here because m’colleague Rhidian from Bwyta Yn Y Brifddinas recommended it. He reckons the bread tells you most of what you need to know in places like this. He’s not wrong: this stuff has an almost liquoricy hint of anise. I feel at home here: proper cooking. Proper restaurant. Proper ingredients. There’s a Jerusalem artichoke veloute, silkier than Mrs Silky Silkworm’s favourite silk smalls.

The first dish is in effect a greatest hits of the sea. Perfectly seared, meaty hand-dived scallops, spankingly fresh squid, red mullet,  in a sauce of impressive depth. ‘Accurate’ and ‘precise’ are hardly words to get the blood pumping- but that’s what they’ve done here. Each part is beautifully done, and all come together beautifully in an impressive plateful.

Squash tortellini teams silky pasta with the woody note of mushrooms, beets and walnut. It is a whole heap of textures which sings a quiet harmony.

Sweetbreads are seductively tender. They might not be to everyone’s taste- a shade too visceral for some- but I rarely pass up the opportunity. For one thing, you seldom find them at restaurants which don’t know what they are doing. Here they sit with a subtly mustardy sauce, sweet leeks and the lovely addition of laverbread- another must-have- and capers.

But even better is the guinea fowl. There’s pear and hazelnuts among the wonderful cooking of the breast; the confit leg meat is pressed into a silky terrine. Pearl barley still has plenty of that welcome bite and has lapped up the bird’s juices. It’s brilliant. It’s can-I-get-away-with-slurping-this-in-a-restaurant satisfying.

Rum baba- their first one served, apparently- is spiked with the lift of lime and liberally soused with booze- you wouldn’t want to risk a naked flame near this dish, though it doesn’t hang around long enough for this to be an issue.

Chocolate with clementine is rich and decadent, perched precisely at the point where bitter and sweet meet for best effect. They are tried and tested combinations, done beautifully.

This, surely, is the kind of neighbourhood restaurant everyone wants: quietly elegant yet never starchy. It’s fresh, it’s seasonal, it’s lovely.

Speaking of which: that Bute Park salad consists of leaves grown by Cardiff Salad Garden– a not-for-profit within the Park, where the produce is tended by asylum seekers and biked over to Milkwood daily. And if that doesn’t warm the cockles of your heart, you are- frankly- beyond help.

There’s nothing revolutionary here, just a bunch of lovely things put together on a plate with some consideration for feeding you well and sending you out happy. It’s an evocative name, of course, and puts me in mind of my old English teacher, the great OJ Wallis.

And as I write this I can still see, across the decades, the mischievous twinkle under those unruly eyebrows as he teaches us Dylan Thomas’ masterpiece: there is ‘Llaregub’ wrong, and everything right, with this Milkwood.

Milkwood

83 Pontcanna St

Cardiff

CF11 9HS


Monday-closed

Tuesday 6pm to 10pm

Wed-Sat 12pm to 3pm and 6pm to 10pm

Sunday closed

YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY:

  • Milkwood, Pontcanna 2020 revisitMilkwood, Pontcanna 2020 revisit
  • The Bunch of Grapes, PontypriddThe Bunch of Grapes, Pontypridd
  • The Park House, Cardiff: a la carte menu, May 2018The Park House, Cardiff: a la carte menu, May 2018
  • Restaurant 1861, Cross Ash, Abergavenny: ALC lunch/dinner reviewRestaurant 1861, Cross Ash, Abergavenny: ALC…
Tags: Cardiff, Cardiff Restaurants, Milkwood

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Subscribe to The Plate Licked Clean

I'll never try to sell you anything or spam your inbox, but to get an update via email when a new piece is posted, register here:

The Plate Licked Clean

This blog is a very simple thing.

I won’t try to sell you any hand lotion, exercise programmes, coffee syrups or Patagonian nose flutes.  You won’t find tips on dating, ‘wellness’ or yoga mats.

I write because I love it (and food, as indicated by my increasing girth). Greed happens to be my Deadly Sin of choice, but at least it is never shy of providing me with subject matter. 

A simple thing, then: all you get is me wittering on semi-coherently about places I’ve eaten at; hence a ‘restaurant blog’ rather than a ‘food blog’, although there are a few recipes scattered throughout. 

From mezze to Michelin ‘fine dining’ and all points in between. 

Recent Posts

  • La Marina, The Old Custom House, Penarth
  • La Cuina, Pontcanna, Cardiff: 2020 review
  • Milkwood, Pontcanna 2020 revisit
  • The inevitable ‘2020 end of year round up’ post
  • Afrikana, City Road, Cardiff
  • Ansh burgers, Victoria Park, Cardiff
  • Bones Supperclub by Lee Skeet, Cardiff
  • Pasture, High St, Cardiff
  • Heaney’s, Pontcanna, Cardiff: 2020 reopening menu review
  • Mattancherry, Canton, Cardiff: restaurant review

ISB Certified

Influencer Standards Board

© The Plate Licked Clean 2021