Old Post Office

There is nothing pretentious about this charming restaurant built behind an old post office and police station, only 4 miles from the centre of Cardiff. Yet you could be a 100 miles away for all you know about it. The restaurant is an inspired add-on, built in minimalist style with great dignity and comfort.

The menu too is simple, but in a subtle kind of way, and enormously health-conscious but still leaving plenty of room for enjoyment. Start with Tuscan bean soup with parmesan and bruschetta, warm ham hock salad with a fine caper dressing, or carpaccio of local venison with a rocket and fig salad.

For the main event spare more than a thought for the cockle, mussel, leek and laver bread pie, or cod with bubble and squeak, crisp pancetta and spinach. A 10oz rib eye of Welsh beef with sauté potatoes and warm spinach salad exhibits all the signs of excellence, and is likely to severely imperil your chances of fully enjoying the desserts, constructions of decadence that seem not to have heard my earlier comments about healthy food. Possibly the least lethal are the poached fruits with vanilla ice cream and the vanilla pannacotta with coffee granite.

This is a place to go out of the way, as being infinitely preferable to the city frustrations of nearby Cardiff, however beautiful it may be.