Why Gareth Ward will never be satisfied at Ynyshir
The day Gareth Ward is satisfied with how things are at Ynyshir will be the day he walks away.
Considering all the accolades both Gareth and his restaurant have won since he joined more than a decade ago, he would have every reason to feel satisfied.
But his “obsessive” nature leaves him always striving for more.
Ynyshir Restaurant with Rooms, in Machynlleth, became the first restaurant in Wales to hold both two Michelin stars and five AA rosettes. This year, Gareth was crowned AA Chefs’ Chef of the Year, following in the footsteps of the likes of Paul Ainsworth, Tom Aikens and Mark Birchall.
“I feel very lucky that I have found something in life that makes me get up in the morning and feel so passionate and energised, wanting to push it and being addicted to it every day,” said Gareth.
“It came out of nowhere. I am very proud of where we have got to with it. It is pretty special.”
Gareth Ward’s path into the kitchen
The road to becoming a chef was not something Gareth would have foreseen from an early age.
Describing himself as a “terrible eater” as a child, with cooking knowledge limited to toast and tins of soup, Gareth targeted joining the Army or fire brigade, but neither panned out.
When his uncle suggested becoming a chef, because “you’ll always have a job”, that was it, or as Gareth put it: “The rest is history.”
He started out at The Seven Stars in nearby Durham.
“Probably the busiest pub in the world at the time,” said Gareth.
“It was carnage and some of the best times of my life.
“I did not really have a food philosophy, it was survival. When you are younger, you have no idea what you are doing. A guy asks you to cook duck breast, you do not even know what that is, but you find it and cook it.
“For lunch, you would do about 300 sandwiches. It was right next door to the university, just insane.
“Whatever I was doing, I was getting better at it.”
He added: “You can tell when a chef has never worked anywhere like that by the way they work, how they think and how they manage themselves.
“I always tell my guys now: you have got to learn how not to be in the shit, and to do that you have really got to be in the shit.
“It is discipline and routine. If you make a mistake, the whole thing just piles down on top of you like a pack of cards. I have been there many, many times. It stays with you forever.
“Then when it comes to a kitchen like we have got now, where it is so beautiful, and you are just wandering around and it is so simple, all these things make it so much slicker.”
Discovering Michelin ambition at Hambleton Hall
From there, Gareth moved to Michelin-starred Hambleton Hall in Rutland.
“I did not even know what a Michelin star was,” Gareth admitted.
“I walked through the back door and was literally stopped in my tracks as an 18-year-old boy.
“Chefs were walking around in pristine, clean whites with white aprons and hats. The place was beautifully lit and the kitchen was absolutely on fire.
“That is when I lost my beautiful, slender figure, because I just ate everything!
“It was addictive. I needed to know how to cook everything.”
He continued: “When you are young, immature and still searching, it takes a long time to get to the point where you are confident in what you do in a kitchen.
“An 18-year-old boy in the kitchen wants to put everything on a dish. You give him a table with 100 ingredients on it and he will put all 100 on it because he cannot help himself and does not know when to stop.
“I have just turned 44. I would say it is only in the last five years of my life that I have truly understood what I want to do in cooking and really gone about it.
“I know where I want to be, how I want it to be, where I want to go. I can see the journey.
“I am stripping back on everything now. I am taking stuff off dishes. Instead of putting all the ingredients on the plate, I am putting them back on the table.”
The Sat Bains years: Creativity, pressure and finding his voice
Gareth would later spend time as sous chef at Restaurant Sat Bains (RSB), before the opportunity arose to start his own project in Wales.
“I am very fortunate and honoured to have been able to work in that (RSB) kitchen,” said Gareth.
“It made me realise what I wanted to do, how I wanted to cook, and it opened my mind and made me super creative and constantly craving creativity.
“That is what he does. He almost forces it on you. He makes you think about food. He wants you
to taste what you are thinking. The guy is obsessed with food.
“That is undoubtedly the hardest kitchen I have ever been in in my life. I learned so much about cooking, food and how to run a business.”
He continued: “One day I got a phone call saying, ‘do you fancy moving to Wales?’
“I said, ‘all the way over there? Not a chance, there is nothing there.’
“They said, ‘it is perfect, there is an unbelievable opportunity coming up, do three years, win what you can and then that will set you up for the next stage.’
“I got an interview and the journey here blew my mind. I thought, ‘wow, Wales is unbelievable.’ I had never been before.
“I got to the end of the drive and thought, ‘I am having this job today, because this is an unbelievable place to be.’ It was a sleeping giant.”
Rebuilding Ynyshir: From hotel to two-star powerhouse
At Ynyshir, guests are not just treated to a meal. It is a 30-course tasting menu experience, lasting five hours, with the food style a combination of Welsh produce and Asian techniques and flavours.
Ynyshir regained its Michelin star early in Gareth’s reign, in 2014, before undergoing a refresh during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2022, it was finally upgraded to two stars.
“We managed to get a star in our first year, which was unbelievable, blew my mind. I did not think that was going to happen,” said Gareth.
“Then it got to the point where I was ready to leave. I had done everything I wanted to do here as head chef.
“Unfortunately, the owner Mrs Reen died. She was such a legend.
“It opened a door for me to take on the restaurant.”
He added: “Every year when the Michelin Guide came out, it was, ‘Ynyshir is going to get two stars.’ All the chefs would say, ‘good luck for today, you are going to get two stars.’ Then you get there and it does not happen.
“After a while it gets to you a bit, because inside, a little bit, you start to believe maybe it is possible.
“Then it got to the point where I thought it is not going to happen.
“It was eight years between the first and second star, I had written it off. I came to peace with it.
“Then I got a phone call from a French lady in Paris. She said she was from the Michelin Guide.
“It was just after Covid at the time and she said: “Are you available to do a video meeting on Wednesday?”
“I asked why and she said, ‘I do not know why, your name is just on a list of names I have got to call today.’
“We had a table set with a big computer on it. There were about 20 or 30 members of staff in the room. The guy on the video said, ‘you have got a second star.’
“We were all crying. I was so proud, because it is hard work.”
Why Gareth Ward never stops pushing
For Gareth, that is not where the story ends.
“Every day this restaurant has to be better than it was the day before,” he insisted.
“There is no other way.
“Every day we have a sheet of paper we stick down on the bench, write the date on it, and we criticise ourselves through the day.
“At the end of the day, we sit down, have a meeting about it and go through and correct that list so it does not go back on the list tomorrow.
“If it does, there is a problem. Tomorrow is a different list, a different set of things that are wrong. It does not stop.”
He added: “You cannot ever just be satisfied. I could never think of anything worse than just standing there being satisfied with how it is. I would walk out. I would never come back into this kitchen.
“I have always had an obsessive nature about me.
“I have grafted my arse off to get here. My body is fucked. I cannot feel my legs, my back is not good, my feet, my hips, my knees, my shoulders. I am weak. I have been doing this 24/7. I have not just made this up overnight.
“I will cook until I stop enjoying it. That is my path. I love my job. It is my whole life.
“It is my passion. I live for cooking. The day I wake up and think, ‘I do not want to do that,’ it is somebody else’s turn.
“I will go and do something else. I will be a postman or drive a van.”
(Filmmaking team: Theo Gee, Marcus Ellingham, Luke Ellingham, Brendan Harvey, Callum Lindsay, James Edwards, Brother Music, Hugo Ellingham, Patrick Lee, Harbor, Karol Cybulski, Callum Richards)
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Why Gareth Ward will never be satisfied at Ynyshir
