Restaurant
James Sommerin at The Esplanade will officially open on May 14
th. The restaurant in Penarth, Wales, seats 70 diners in total, including a private dining room that seats twelve and a special chef’s table for two to four diners. Also available are nine en-suite bedrooms for overnight guests including five rooms with sea views.
Chef James Sommerin and his wife Louise will offer their patrons a range of tasting menus, each with the additional option for wine pairing. Priced from £55 to £150, James’ menus are named in Welsh after elements of the restaurant’s dramatic backdrop, each evoking a distinct flavour of the restaurant’s surroundings and local heritage.
Diners can expect culinary pleasures such as duck, lavender and beetroot with soy sauce and cumin, and locally-produced Pantysgawn cheese with celery, artichoke and ginger. Other dishes on the menu include:
- Monkfish, seaweed and grilled leek on the traeth (beach)
- Langoustine with turnip, tonka bean and white chocolate on the clogwyn (cliff)
- Welsh lamb
With panoramic views over the Severn Estuary and an open-plan kitchen arrangement that allows diners a behind-the-scenes view of the action, the dining experience here is a multi-sensory one. The restaurant, which occupies Penarth’s seafront Esplanade, is Sommerin’s ‘dream location.’ Its redevelopment has been carried out with a huge degree of integrity and respect for the building’s original character, retaining and enhancing many of its original features. ‘To make it any different would be sacrilege,’ explains Sommerin.
Chef’s Table Menu
Restaurant James Sommerin’s signature offering is the Chef’s Table tasting menu: front-row seats in the thick of the action, with all fourteen courses served by the chefs themselves. Taken at a table in the kitchen itself, the Chef’s Table menu is priced at £150 per person; an immersive dining experience where guests can sit back and enjoy the sheer theatre of the kitchen as they witness the creation of each and every dish before it arrives at the table.
The Chef’s Table experience kicks off with a glass of bubbly on arrival and is rounded off with a goodie bag for diners to take home and enjoy. The Chef’s Table menu is available for tables of two to four, and is a true feast for all the senses.
James has been in the kitchen since the age of twelve when he kept a Saturday job in an Italian restaurant in his local Newport. James’ journey then saw him travel to Scotland where he learnt the importance of seasonality, cooked for the opening of Scottish Parliament and was shortlisted for Young Scottish Chef of the Year. James and Louise also met in Scotland, marrying and welcoming their first of three daughters to the world before moving back to his homeland in 2000. Being awarded the coveted Michelin star as Head Chef of The Crown at Whitebrook in 2007 is an achievement James is hugely proud of, and he retained the star until the restaurant closed its doors in 2013.
All photos courtesy of
Huw Jones 
