It’s hard to keep up with the innovative, slightly crazy things Gareth Ward is doing with food at Ynyshir, a Michelin-starred restaurant-with-rooms in Wales’ Dyfi Valley. Since I visited the truly unique, incredible place he’s already installed a Saltan Himalayan salt chamber – one of the only restaurants (quite possibly the only restaurant) in the world to do so, which he believes will make his prized ingredient better than it already is. That prized ingredient is beef, reared by Ifor Humphreys fifty miles away in Montgomery. But this isn’t any ordinary beef. It comes from Welsh Wagyu cattle, known for their high marbled fat content, which results in more flavour and better texture. These particular cows are reared on a diet of local beer and even get the occasional massage. It’s the kind of life I long for.
Gareth goes one step further, however. The beef itself is already better quality than what most chefs can get their hands on, but to do it justice he dry-ages it, which brings out its natural flavour and improves its texture. With Ifor not able to do it for him and being located in a remote Welsh valley, Gareth knew if he wanted dry-aged Wagyu, he would have to do it himself.
‘I’d never aged anything before coming to Ynyshir, but I quickly realised I would have to adapt to my environment,’ he tells me as we walk over to his ageing room. ‘There’s no such thing as next day delivery round here – it’s next week delivery at best, so if you forget to order something you’re fucked. We hold a lot of stock and you have to be organised to make sure you never run out of something, so we end up doing a lot of stuff ourselves rather than relying on others.’
When Gareth first took over Ynyshir five years ago, he was adamant that no beef was going to be on the menu, regarding it as a ‘boring’ ingredient. But that all changed when Ifor brought him a sample of his Welsh Wagyu. ‘It was the best beef I’d ever tasted in my life, and I knew it had to go on the menu because it’s a local product. It’s great fresh but I wanted to age it, and it soon became clear I’d have to do that on-site, buying lots of beef at a time to ensure a constant supply.’
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Old beef, new tricks: ageing meat with Gareth Ward