A family holiday in Wales inevitably involves castles and or course rain but you come to expect that even in August. We came to Kilwelly to see the Castle and frankly if you like that sort of thing it's a good one, lots of stairs and dark holes to explore and great views.
Needing lunch and the surrounding streets looking very much like the suburbs we asked at the gift shop and were told there were a few tea shops and chippy straight down Castle street. The first place we came to was The Gatehouse just outside the south gate, usually I wouldn't go for the place closest to a tourist attraction but it was raining and the boy child was in dire need of feeding. The menu listed toasties so we were sold.
Inside it was compact and cosy but not cluttered, turns out it was a pub which had closed and was re-opened as a little cafe in May 2010. The decor was quaint but not frilly, with local art on the walls for sale. There was sandwiches, paninis, jackets, soups, omelettes, a couple of burgers and a couple of mains. They also had a pretty nice looking breakfast menu, nothing was more than £7 and a pot of tea for 2 was only £1.80! Being a city dweller with a bad Starbucks habit I was stunned.
My husband had the local Lamb Burger, my son a Cheese and Ham Toastie and I had a cheese and ham omelette. Including a pot of tea for three £15. The food was truly truly scrumptious, nothing fancy no pouncing about, just really nice home made fresh food, presented well by a lovely smiley waitress.
The burger was tasty and well cooked, the omelette was light and loads of filling and the toastie had some of the nicest ham and well rounded cheddar as you'd find in any gastro pub, no plastic ham and flavourless plastic cheese here thank you!
Having thoroughly enjoyed our lunch we decided to stay for pudding, here would be my only and rather small complaint. The boy child had a scoop of ice cream and whilst we like Movenpick, there are so many nice and local dairies in this part of Wales it would have been pleasing to have had one of those surely? And at £2 it was the only expensive thing there.
The homemade blackberry pie (They called it tart) was a triumph not too sweet not too heavy, fruit still holding it's shape and crispy pastry of the softest, crumbliest kind -yum yum yum with another pot of tea.
With full bellies and unbattered wallet, we returned to the car happy to drive home in the rain!
If you're in the area and castles are on your agenda Kilwelly is well worth a visit as is the lovely little Gatehouse cafe! read more