With a spiffy refurb and relaunch to celebrate, The Corner House also has a brand new menu.
You can eat anywhere: the bar is busier, while the restaurant is the place to head for if you're after something more leisurely.
Bottled beers are to the fore upstairs in the restaurant- gluten free choices are highlighted, and it's a pleasant surprise to see Palax (a pale lager from La Rioja, also spotted in Asador 44), several from the typically interesting Siren and a smattering of gins while you mull over the menu.
There are some serious contenders from a large list: crab, king prawn and chorizo linguini, buttermilk fried chicken and a chicken and leek pie make for some serious deliberation. (Less so a Wagyu beef burger- I don't get the point of taking meat whose standout feature is the delicate marbling of fat, only to force it through the plates of a grinder.)
Expectations are heightened when we are asked how we want our lamb cooked. That's rare (I'm here all week) locally. I couldn't recall being asked that before, and neither could my friend, a former chef.
Duck wings- three generously meaty wings, from well-fed birds, come neatly trimmed and liberally doused with hoisin sauce, sesame seeds and roasted plums for a rich, tangy starter. My friend reckons it's a blast of almost over-the-top, old-school Chinese flavour, and he's right.
Squid, as ever, is a pretty reliable indicator of whether a kitchen knows its stuff. A lemony aioli is excellent. The flesh is tender inside its crisp, salty coating, but the billed Schezuan peppercorns seem a bit muted: there's little of the effect Harold McGee likens to touching one's tongue to the terminals of a nine volt battery.
There's a stumble with the chips- the first batch is far too dark, too soft, so it goes back. Chips billed as 'twice cooked' promise certain things. They promise snap. They promise rustle. And while 'Snap & Russell' might sound like the drearily 'zany' sort of regional radio breakfast show presenters you'd saw off your ears with a rusty hacksaw to avoid, they are sadly absent from our chips.
Our server offers to replace them: the next batch arrive looking a lot healthier, but are slightly undercooked.
That hitch seems all the more jarring when the meats arrive- because they are nothing short of excellent.
That lamb? Beautifully pink, as requested, and impeccably tender, with some crackle in the skin: it's undeniably impressive cooking.
There's an accomplished butternut squash mash; and if the red cabbage is a little dry on its own, it really comes alive with an impressive red wine jus, which hits that sweet spot of not too thin, not too sticky.
A round of pork belly, that lovely fat properly rendered down and well seasoned, is a lovely thing. Cut this thin, it would be easy to dry it out in the cooking, but it's note-perfect.
A spiced apple purée, with a touch of cinnamon, brings everything together, like little panko-crumbed fritters of apple. A dish of dauphinoise potatoes is just the thing: if I was picking holes I'd have liked more of a fuss to have been made of the scallops, but this is another impressive serving.
That precision makes for some lovely eating, and means the chip conundrum should be easy to rectify. A kitchen which can produce lamb so expertly seasoned and seared, pork so deftly rendered, should be able to knock out great chips without too much bother.
The golden sphere of the chocolate bomb, shell holds salted caramel ice cream and popping candy.
It's a spot of theatrics: after all, it's an echo of what Gordon Ramsay's Petrus was serving in 2010, a visually impressive dessert which becomes a showstopper as the hot fudge sauce- poured at the table- brings the shell's gentle implosion. Within a couple of minutes the pattern on the crockery was still visible- barely.
If you crave something a little different, this is hard to beat. With a couple of tweaks, The Corner House promises to be a strong contender as your next dinner destination. Meat cookery this precise is not easy to find.
We were invited to review The Corner House and all food and drink was complimentary. This did not influence our opinion.
25 Caroline St,
Cardiff
CF10 1FF
Sunday10am–10:30pm
Monday10am–11pm
Tuesday10am–11pm
Wednesday10am–11pm
Thursday10am–11pm
Friday10am–12am
Saturday10am–12am
029 2022 8628
Menu: cornerhousecardiff.co.uk