Awards and Reviews of Plas Bodegroes

In the 21 years we have been open, we have been fortunate to have received many
plaudits and favourable reviews from both the media and food and hotel guides.

This is a selection of our awards.

Star from the guide whose name we can't mention in our publicity

WAG True Taste Restaurant of the Year 2007/8

Visit Wales Gold Award 2007/8

Good Food Guide UK Restaurant of the Year 2002/3

Egon Ronay Star

Good Hotel Guide Cesar Award "Outstanding Restaurant with Rooms"

WDA True Taste Restaurant of the Year 2003

Harden's Hotel Guide 2005. Top ten value UK Hotels (3 Smileys)

Harden's UK Restaurants 2007. "Fantastically tranquil atmosphere", Exceptional food, two stars - "Wales's Best"

Observer Food Monthly 2005 and 2006 - Top five by the seaside - "After 20 years, still the best in Wales"

A selection of recent reviews

Daily Telegraph 1 August 2006 - Fiona Duncan, Hotel Guru

"Romantic, that's what Plas Bodegroes (Rosehip Hall) seems to me. First there's the house, a small Georgian manor with a delicate frill of a veranda whose slim cast-iron columns are smothered in wisteria, roses and wild strawberry. Then there are the grounds. A heart-shaped swathe of lawn and a 200-year-old avenue of beech trees, carpeted in March and April with daffodils, in May with bluebells and leading nowhere but fields. To one side, a long red-and-white Danish pennant on a tall flagpole flutters in the wind. "They're obsessed with flags, the Scandinavians," says chef-proprietor Chris Chown, referring to his elegant Danish/Faroese wife, Gunna, who looks after front of house. "Flags and hearts...everywhere flags and hearts." Romantic and unpretentious, even though Chris is the holder, since 1991, of one of only two "Tyre company beginning with M" stars in Wales. Perhaps it's because he's self-taught, perhaps because Plas Bodegroes is emphatically a "restaurant-with-rooms" and not a hotel, or perhaps it's just because he and Gunna are such nice people.

The dining room is romantic, too, with its clever use of mirrors, its elegant French doors onto the veranda and its beautifully lit duck-egg blue walls. Welsh lamb and Black beef feature prominently on the unpretentious menu, though equal emphasis is given to fresh fish. My warm salad of monkfish was accompanied by Carmarthen, rather than Parma ham and my grilled fillet of turbot was served simply with a vermouth and lemon butter sauce, just how I like it. The wine list bolstered our feeling that rural Welsh restaurants have a habit of producing highly interesting lists at gentle prices. Chris was back in the kitchen the next morning. "Get this, your breakfast is being cooked by a Michelin-starred chef ," I told my son as he tucked into "the best" fry-up. "Very important", says Chris. "The British know about breakfast. They don't want to come all this way for a good dinner followed by a second-rate breakfast cooked by the fifth commis chef."

Rooms *** Prettily coloured and individually decorated in Scandinavian style
Service **** Mainly local staff create a close-knit team
Character **** Romantic charm, though the sitting can be cramped before dinner
Food & Drink ***** Excellent food, sensibly priced wine list
Value for money ***** Food and setting of this quality are hard to find at these prices "

Sunday Times 29 June 2003 - Susan D'Arcy

For starters: the drive to Plas Bodegroes (pronounced Plas Bod-egg-royce), in Pwllheli (pronounced town - try anything else and you'll make a fool of yourself), is tortuously long but richly rewarding, passing through stunning Welsh mountain scenery and the wild coastline of the Lleyn peninsula. It ends on an equally high note, past grazing sheep and cattle, along a winding path that leads to this elegant, cream- coloured Georgian manor house. Plas Bodegroes is unrepentantly a restaurant with rooms - you cannot stay on days when the dining room is closed - and operates on a much more informal basis than a hotel. There is no reception, for example, but after we banged on the door marked No Admission, a waiter appeared and charmingly showed us the bell to press for attention. The public areas are small for 22 guests, just a cosy lounge and a corridor that has been converted into a bar, but both are decorated in a jaunty, unintimidating country-house style, complemented by some bold examples of modern art. The bedrooms have the same bright and breezy atmosphere. The courtyard rooms are the newest and plushest, but those at the front overlook the wonderful 200-year-old avenue of beech trees.

Work up an appetite: Snowdonia is a short drive away, but we opt for a gentler stroll around Portmeirion, the Italianate village built by the eccentric architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, and currently enjoying a popularity surge thanks to its use as a location in the drama series Cold Feet (it was off the village's beach that Adam scattered Rachel's ashes). Afterwards, we drive to Harlech for a tour of its 13th- century castle ramparts before heading down to Morfa Harlech for a walk along a near-deserted beach, backed by beautiful grassy dunes and framed by fantastically craggy cliffs - just enough calorie-burning to make room for dinner.

Main course: Plas Bodegroes is The Good Food Guide's Wales Restaurant of the Year for 2003 - a prestigious honour that, like its Michelin star, is well deserved. Devotees drive from Manchester and beyond to eat here, and famous regulars include Bryn Terfel. Chef Chris Chown got into the business after abandoning a career as a City accountant 20 years ago. Although he learnt a lot from best friend Nick Gill, brother of AA and one of the driving forces behind the introduction of nouvelle cuisine to the UK, Chown is essentially self-taught. This may account for the refreshing lack of pretension in both the menu and presentation. He is passionate about using local ingredients: Welsh lamb and beef are world-famous, but the area is also renowned for its lobster, crab and sea trout, and Chown uses Carmarthen rather than Parma ham, and bara brith for his bread-and-butter pudding. The dining room is stylish, with large picture windows, well-spaced tables and a relaxing duck-egg-blue colour scheme. Our starters of lobster risotto and scallops were delicious, while fillet of beef with a horseradish crust and lamb cutlets with onion sauce literally melted in the mouth, as did the dreamy chocolate souffle for dessert. The wine list is extensive, with a good selection for less than £20 - and, as dinner is a set price of £35 for three courses, this could well be one of the cheapest "Tyre Company beginning with M"-starred dinners you ever eat.