There's one pub missing

Lifestyle editor Kathryn Williams has eaten at all five Welsh pubs named on the Good Food Guide's inaugural top 100. Here’s her verdict on their choice...

- Kathryn Williams

AT CERTAIN times of year you can’t move for ‘best of’ rankings and top 10s of places to eat, drink or have a massage. This autumn is no different.

So far we've had a Welsh venue added to the Michelin Guide, our best kebab houses and The Good Food Guide has released their 100 Best Pubs guide.

That prestigious list, the inaugural one for pubs, includes five fantastic Welsh pubs. I've eaten in them all, but there's one missing that could make it a six-strong contingent from Wales.

I’m absolutely not taking anything away from the five in there, Pontypridd’s The Bunch of Grapes is one of my absolutely favourite pubs - not just because I've won the quiz there - and Inn at the Sticks down in Llansteffan is truly a destination pub with an amazingly inventive kitchen team and eye-catching menu. Think reinvented Sunday roasts with mini Yorkshire puddings or Welsh brisket drenched in hot honey.

The Bunch is the same, no one expects to be eating masterfully cooked lamb chump with a tandoori flavour so delicate it belongs on MasterChef, down a quiet, dead-middle (it’s not a dead end, there's a set of bollards in the middle) street stuck behind a B&Q on the cusp of the south Wales valleys.