Wright's FoodEmporium

Wright's took over the old Golden Grove Arms in the Tywi valley village of Llanarthne in 2013 and turned it into one of the best places to eat in Wales — a café-kitchen and food shop in the rooms of a former pub, run by Simon Wright, a food writer and broadcaster who has spent thirty years around Welsh restaurants, with his wife Maryann and son Joel. The model, borrowed loosely from a New York deli, is generous cooking from a short, changing menu — big sandwiches, slow-cooked plates, good bread and cheese — eaten in a warren of characterful rooms, with a shop of wine and provisions to take away. It became a destination almost immediately, the sort of place people drive across two counties for on a Saturday, and it has kept its standards while doing it. A restaurant, a deli and a wine shop in a village pub, run by a family who plainly love it. Worth the detour, and then some.