After the success of his 40 Days, 40 Nights pop-up in the Welsh capital, former head chef of Hedone Lee Skeet is opening his first bricks and mortar site: Cora.
Having been away from cooking and the culinary world for a long time, Lee Skeet has, in the last year, come from cooking for a supper club in his living room to a pop-up restaurant, and is now set to open a permanent site.
Cora
The restaurant, Cora, named after his daughter, will be located in the upstairs area of Café Milkwood, in the Pontcanna area of Cardiff – where the chef hosted the sell-out 40 Days, 40 Nights pop-up.
Lee said: “To get into the restaurant upstairs you still have to go through Milkwood downstairs. It’s a bit of a unique setup; it’s like a semi-secret entrance and then upstairs it’s a completely separate dining room and kitchen.”
The restaurant only 12 seats and, despite its physical connection to Milkwood, Lee described it as “completely [the] opposite from downstairs.”
Whereas the neighbourhood restaurant only serves brunch and lunch in what Lee describes as “a really lively laid-back bustling restaurant,” upstairs is decidedly more relaxed.
Now that Lee has secured a permanent location, he plans on further refining his food, service, and wine selection.
“I’m looking forward to being in one place, really putting everything I possibly can into it and seeing if I can do a good job of it.”
Not your run of the mill fine-dining restaurant
Along with the name, Lee is setting out his priorities by defying the traditional restaurant norms and only having Cora open from Monday through Friday, and even then not doing a dinner service on Friday.
This leaves 5 lunch services and 4 dinner services which, if it stays viable, allows him to spend time with his family at the weekend and also avoids the anti-social hours typical of the industry.
Lee said, “I don’t want to be like everyone else. I haven’t worked in a restaurant for 7 years and I was done with cooking. It just wasn’t for me, and I’ve had a family in that time. I’ve got two kids, a great partner and that’s the most important thing for me.”
With a little
