Hidden rooftop bar where you can enjoy lush sunset views
At the heart of Cardiff’s shopping epicentre is a bar and restaurant away from the hustle and bustle, with views of the city skyline. Lifestyle editor Kathryn Williams reports
WHILE Cardiff ain’t New York when it comes to far-reaching, twinkly sky-scraper-filled skylines, it does have a tucked-away restaurant and bar that overlooks the Principality Stadium, church spires and the city’s famous castle tower which you can escape to after the franticness of a shopping spree or a busy day at the office.
What was previously the Marco Pierre White above Dominion Arcade and Hotel Indigo, the high-up bolt hole is now Lefel 6, which serves cocktails, coffees, bar menus and fancier restaurant dishes with a Welsh-centric flavour and inspiration. And if the evening you visit was anything like the one when we went, you’ll be sipping your desired drink out on the terrace to catch the sunset over the stadium – albeit with a decent cardi on.
It’s quite nice venturing down the century-old arcade to find the tuckedaway boutique hotel and then making your way up to the sixth floor. A world-away from the often overwhelming Queen Street, with its delivery cyclists and shoppers in a rush, Lefel 6 is a sanctuary – maybe a bit vanilla in its decor – but is quiet and peaceful nonetheless and the staff are very lovely and welcoming.
Out of two menus, the lounge – which has the likes of fish and chips, rarebit burger, small plates and such – and the restaurant – fillet steak, chicken ballotine, pork tenderloin,
etc – we were given the latter as we booked ahead, but it would have been nice to have had the option to look at the lounge menu.
Nonetheless, we were hungry so we chose from the menu in front of us. I went with the duck parfait that came with hazelnuts, savoury Welshcake and orange puree (£7.95) as a starter and the chicken ballotine for main, and that came wrapped in a wild garlic and with a chestnut mushroom centre. It was served alongside Wye Valley asparagus, wild garlic pesto and mushroom jus (£15.95).
My friend chose from the vegan options, the impressive-looking Welsh leek mosaic starter that had toasted
pine nuts and fresh herb consomme (£6.95) and a creamy wild mushroom, cep and morel risotto (£13.95).
In what was a nice touch, we were treated to some salmon and goose canapes with our drinks before the main dishes came. All the food looked great and I liked the effort that had gone into using Welsh ingredients at what is a restaurant used by many out-of-towners.
My duck parfait arrived and it looked the business, the savoury Welshcakes had the right sort of denseness and salty, slightly cheesy kick, but unfortunately, the lovely, smooth parfait’s taste did not stand up with its plate-mates. A great idea, I
hope it reaches its potential soon.
Another attractive starter, the leek mosaic looked good and we liked that you could add as much or as little of the consomme as you liked. The soft, layers of juicy leeks were weaved into separate segments and topped with pine nuts, served cold, it was a fresh and light starter, a bit different to your usual vegan offering and we liked the choice.
The creamy risotto – also vegan – was a good bowl of solid comfort food with a nice topping of vegan parmesan crisp. Impressive to look at, the chicken ballotine was nicely executed once again, the chicken was cooked beautifully, soft and fell apart easily,
but once more there was just something missing flavour-wise. It looked good, was a great idea, but just needed a little something extra on the flavour front.
Also ordered with our mains were the chunky chips (£3.95) and buttered leeks and peas (£4.95) both were a nice extra, as we were pretty hungry!
On to the dessert. This was perhaps the best course, fully rounded on the idea, execution and flavour. It looked fab, too. We shared the trio of strawberry (£6.95). It consisted of macerated strawberries in basil and lemonvanilla sugar, strawberry jelly and strawberry sorbet. There was lots to taste and savour, the jelly was great, chewy and soft but tasted like fresh strawbs – as did, of course, the macerated fruit, which was great with the sugar syrup. And the tart, cold sorbet had lots of body to it, a great dessert.
Hopefully when we return, the Lefel 6 team will have bedded in and the all-round food experience adds up to the great service, chilled out vibe and that great view.
It’s a heck of a lovely spot to sink a glass of Malbec, like I did, and have some nibbles. We were lucky the sunset was obliging and we had a bright view over towards Leckwith with the Principality, Cardiff City Stadium, the castle and more in the frame.
EGGS have somehow become synonymous with the millennial phenomenon that is brunch. But are scrambled eggs on sourdough really worth the money you’d pay at a café, or could you better master the art of egg-making at home?
In defence of restaurants, it’s really hard to make an egg dish that’s worth the money they need to charge to keep an establishment running, says cook, writer and content creator Ed Smith. But eggs are the ultimate “quick and nourishing” ingredient for a home-cooked meal – not to mention cheap.
And if you have forked out cash for an upmarket brunch, the stakes are higher. “You know when you get that poached egg and you cut into it and the yolk doesn’t move anywhere? That is, I think, one of the more disappointing things in life,” says the 42-yearold Londoner.
Even with the huge rise in places serving up poached eggs or shakshuka for £12 a pop, Ed says: “There are not many places I’d rather eat an egg than in my own house.”
And with a bit of encouragement, and a few out-of-the-box egg ideas, most people would agree, he reckons.
Ed, who made his name with the blog and social account Rocket &
Squash and left his corporate law job working 60-80 hours a week in 2012 to pursue food, first started experimenting with eggs more when his son was a baby.
“I tended to have what I would call a second breakfast after having been up for a few hours. I’m sitting there trying to occupy my child while I’m letting my wife sleep and I found myself slightly embellishing eggs.”
Eggs are, after all, usually always in most people’s kitchens. “It’s a great way to clear out the cupboards of all the ingredients that you buy for other recipes,” he says, and they became a staple of his working lunch during lockdown and the years of working from home since.
It’s only fitting then that Ed’s fourth cookbook is called Good Eggs – featuring no less than 100 different recipes celebrating the
humble ingredient but with some elevation – like kimchi and gochujang skillet eggs, sausage laab and fried egg bun and za’atar-dusted fudgy-yolked eggs. “It’s not about eggs as an ingredient, but eggs as a centrepiece,” he says.
“Eggs are personal,” he concedes, but they don’t need to be boring.
“If you want to have eggs over easy with an extremely hard yolk, then that’s totally fine, but do consider putting chilli oil on and having it with a paratha rather than white bread.”
One of the major mistakes people make when making brunch at home is attempting eggs for big groups of people, he says.
“I don’t think that you should cook eggs for more than three other people at the same time.
“As soon as you start multiplying it beyond about four people, it becomes chaotic.”
To counteract this, Ed has specific recipes that cater for groups – think group shakshuka or traybaked frittata baguettes with minted feta salad.
Ed’s book is peppered with helpful tips and tricks for the cooking process. For perfectly scrambled soft, oozy eggs, Ed suggests cooking them very gently over a low-medium heat.
“Stir constantly, encouraging very small curds to form as the eggs thicken. Remove from the heat before they are ‘done’,” he writes. If you sense they’re about to overcook, or your other elements aren’t ready yet, transfer to a cold bowl.
Boiled eggs must be the most under-appreciated form of cooked egg, though. “If you ever see a dippy egg, you know, getting an egg in a cup brings back a kind of visceral childhood joy for a lot of people.”
His no-fuss method is room temperature, medium-sized eggs in a saucepan of just-boiling water – and simmer for four minutes and 30 seconds for eggs so soft that they must be left unpeeled and dipped into in the shell instead, or seven minutes for a jammy consistency (45 seconds longer for ‘fudgy’).
Exactly how fresh an egg is determines how it should best be cooked. “You will never get a good poached egg if that egg is not really fresh,” Ed says. The best way to determine freshness is to put it in a glass of water. According to Ed, the fresher the egg, the smaller the air pocket and the less it floats.
“The colour of the yolk comes from the chicken breed and what they eat,” says Ed. “It often involves paprika or something in their feed, which is not a secret.”
Sometimes those eggs also taste better, he reckons. “But that might be a placebo effect, or it might be a close correlation to the fact that the eggs, the farm or the company that has got those bright egg yolks is probably also treating its chickens in a nice way,” Ed says.
“It’s such a joy to open a really bright vibrant orange yolk, it’s like sunshine pouring onto the plate.”
I don’t think that you should cook eggs for more than three other people