St David's Hotel
Havannah StreetCardiff
Wales
CF10 5JD

Phone: 0282 945 4045 (+44 282 945 4045)

Located in the swanky St David's Hotel, is this very elegant restaurant. In a modern contemporary setting Tides offers guest a truly high class meal. Here Chef Martin Green offers modern European dishes using the best of Welsh ingredients. The restaurant has both an ô la carte and set menu (which I must say is extremely good value and had some delicious sounding dishes, on the evening of our visit).

Before our meal we stopped for champagne cocktails at the bar where behind the bar there is a back drop of continuously changing lights, good drinks and a nice ambiance. The bar also offers a Bento Box menu after 6pm.

Seated by the windows we looked over the ever changing Cardiff Bay. Both of us ummed and arrrred about what we having with so many tempting dishes but we eventually chose from the a la carte menu. We began our meal with a tastier of Creme of Wild Mushroom Soup complements from the chef, delicious.

For starters I had the Lobster Salad with a Citrus Dressing; truly an understated name of dish which was far from simple, it consisted of half a lobster tail and a salad of lobster meat which was absolutely mouth watering. Alasdair on the other hand had the barley risotto, which I felt was very poorly presented but nevertheless tasted excellent with a great balance in texture and flavour. Mains were excellent. Alasdair had chosen an amazing dish of Roast Breast of Duck and Confit. Too often this combination is stodgy but we were both impressed by how well balanced it was the only complaint would be the breast was a wee bit dry, especially as he had asked for it to be rare. I had opted for the Wild Mushroom and Goats Cheese Ravioli, which was satisfyingly light but full in flavour; unfortunately it had a base of ratatouille, which many I'm sure would love but sadly red peppers don't agree with me, so I would have liked to have seen that stated in the menu when I ordered. Far from disappointed with our meal we decided to share a dessert of White Chocolate Parfait with a Mango Sorbet and Fruit Salad, a perfect combination of textures and flavour, simply yummy.

Both Alasdair and myself left the restaurant feeling truly satisfied having tried this very special restaurant in Cardiff. A great choice for that very special meal.