Pysgoty – Aberystwyth

Pysgoty – Fish Restaurant. Yes it’s Welsh. There’s a reason for that. We are staying Borth, just north of Aberystwyth. Mid Wales on the coast for the English reading this. We were in this tiny restaurant, in Aberystwyth itself. What a find.

(This is the whole place, and through the door, the tiny Kitchen!)

I do tweet (sorry older people…me and Donald Trump are the older ones who do. Currently he has more followers than me…mainly people panic stricken as to what he might pronounce on next..).  I have two hash tags. One is

#INABOL – It’s Not A Bad Old Life

And

#DAGTH – Died And Gone To Heaven

Just had lunch at this amazing place, with our friends T and L and their lovely daughter Rachel.

And I feel compelled to use both hash tags.

The kitchen is a tiny galley.  The covers – 14 inside, max, maybe 24 outside. More a cafe than a restaurant.  Yes, they have to keep things simple, but it is fish and fish – not fish led, or specialising. Just fish. And more fish. (OK pedants, there was puddings – and cheese…).

Tony and I cannot see another starter once we have seen the word “scallop”. And the other three had grilled mackerel with mango chilli salsa (but with hardly any chilli and some gorgeous deep fried shallot pieces). And crab bruschetta with tomato salsa. We were next to the open galley kitchen so could see the dishes being assembled.  In the hatch, we witnessed the build, and the calm way chef told the servers where the dishes were headed.  If the kitchen is that small, then calmness is the only positive way to be? I bet some big name chefs could learn a lot from that…

Reverential silence settled over us.  Until we started to share. Orgasmic. Exotically fantabulous. Simple but best quality ingredients, cooked with honest excitement. And that appears to be the key to the place.

Mains? Three half lobsters from the bay we were looking out over. And two sets of monkfish with a fragrant tandoori sauce – not too spicy, just very tangibly tasty. Served very simply with saffron rice and salad. Our lobsters came with salad plus the strange Welsh delicacy which is Laver Bread, which added a touch of the ordinary (it is a type of seaweed after all) and made the whole salad a bit extraordinary. Chips or New potatoes – those who had the new spuds were jealous of me. They added a set of new potatoes as a side after a slight mix up with the order. They went too. We sent a few shell bits back. Nothing else.

I was embarrassing myself by thanking chefs already. Profusely. And so well deserved. We did have puddings (you are hugely satisfied but not stuffed at that stage…), and they were all rather good too.

A simple wine list. Great suppliers. Calm and hard working chefs. Lovely serving staff. What’s not to love?

I have said before that I don’t want to write a review in case somewhere becomes too popular. I realise I’m over stating my impact, but honestly, this was one of those occasions.

I hope we do get in again in the future. I did say that I would find it difficult to go to another sea food restaurant from that point onwards.

Pysgoty is very very special. Don’t tell everyone.