Restaurant at Ramada Plaza

QH Hotels' first Ramada franchise has recently opened in Wrexham, offering 85 air-conditioned bedrooms, and for matters of inner comfort the Fusilier Lounge Bar and Zara Restaurant is available to guests and visitors alike.

Typical starters may include seared monkfish cheeks, twice baked Pant Ys Gawn cheese soufflé, with a salad of pickled mushrooms, or lamb and pearl barley cawl, a distinctive Welsh dish with great flavours.

Fillet of Welsh black beef with plum tomato tart tatin, fondant potato and mushroom purée carries the flag for Wales, as does rack of Welsh lamb, halibut supreme served with wilted spinach, char grilled baby aubergine and tomato coulis, or pan-fried skate wings and caper butter served with pomme écrasé and asparagus.

The range of desserts is a source of great pride to Head Chef Chris Howard and his brigade, with Zara's strawberry pudding and sweet yoghurt dressing, warm chocolate fondant and homemade pistachio ice cream leading the list of in-house delights. Yet, despite all the care and inspiration taken over these dishes, a glass of fresh strawberries served simply with pouring cream still tends to outfox the pastry chef's best efforts. There's no justice!

A short but inspiring wine list is designed to catch all tastes, with four house wines by the glass, some half bottles. A selection of New World brings the customary crop of uplifting names - I give you Oxley's Stone, named after a great outback surveyor, or Cougar's Moon zinfandel, as but two examples, and Neil Joubert Pinotage offering a further contribution from South Africa's up and coming wine industry, with a good fruit and smoke character.

Ramada at Wrexham is clearly making a real effort to capture the restaurant business in the area and on present form should succeed.