FFRESH BAR ★★★
Wales Millennium Centre, Bute Place, Cardiff Bay
029 2063 6465
Ffresh Bar is the perfect accompaniment to a night at the theatre. Sitting next to the popular Ffresh restaurant, Ffresh Bar offers a lighter but no less tantalising range of dishes to be enjoyed ahead of a performance at the WMC. With its focus on quality Welsh produce, Ffresh Bar promises a meal with 80% of its ingredients sourced from Wales.
Having recently been refurbished, the comfortable, light and airy bar combines diners and drinkers with ease. Inviting guests to enjoy a relaxed drink or a light meal, the menu is not overly expensive; and with food served until 7.30pm, it’s worth arriving early to enjoy one of the light mains, the selection of inventive pizzas, the mussels or indeed the cheese and meat boards, before the theatre.
With such an appealing menu it didn’t take long to decide upon our main course: mussels in a creamy cider and onion sauce and a meat trio pizza with smoked chicken, chorizo and pepperoni. Simply prepared but also very nicely presented and well cooked, we were extremely satisfied with the delicious mains as we soaked up the pre-theatre buzz.
With the tantalising desert menu tempting us, I couldn’t resist an excellent cold chocolate fondant alongside a refreshing passion fruit sorbet, while an equally stand-out rhubarb desert was enjoyed by my dining partner. We could not fault the desserts and with Ffresh Bar’s delicious range of creative cocktails providing a few out-of-the-ordinary treats, we couldn’t resist trying their signature amaretto, pear, blackcurrant syrup, lemon and ginger cocktail to finish off an altogether refreshing and enjoyable meal.
GARETH LUDKIN