Dulais Rock

You can hear - & glimpse - the magnificent Aberdulais Falls from the carpark, & a canalside walk begins from the doorstep. Inside, it's the epitomy of gastropub chic - all beams & bare floors, with a great wood-burning stove at one end of the bar & a low doorway leading through the snug (leather sofas, mellow lighting) to the stylish three-floored restaurant at the back. The ingredients are always excellent - most are home grown by the proprietor's parents - & the chef makes confident & creative use of them: perhaps in a warm salad of beef fillet with chorizo sausage, quail's egg & a blackened tomato chutney, followed by pan-fried chicken breast on roast red pepper & Chinese cabbage bubble & squeak or mille-feuille of Moroccan-style vegetable tagine with roasted almonds, sweet apricots, filo pastry & a mint yogurt couscous. Great bar snacks too.