Rafael’s Restaurant

What a great wee place! The chef/​owner Rafael makes you feel incredibly welcome, and the food is really impressive. Their potato, asparagus and dill soup was just lovely. I immediately asked Rafael for the recipe, and have already taken the opportunity to recreate it, at home. The lamb shank main was lovely, too. I even got lured in to trying a very chocolatey dessert, which is rare for me.
Hearty, flavour-​packed cooking at its best, Rafael’s is worth a visit, soon.
Overall, we said: «Rafael’s was seriously good. Rarely have a spent a more enjoyable evening as a solo diner. The quality of the food on offer was first rate, with excellent ingredients prepared with considerable care and attention.»

Had dinner in this beautiful, intimate restaurant. The service was good (not spectacular, but good. The food was simply fantastic and the host (the chef) was wonderful. GREAT restaurant!

Rafael was very welcoming. He made his recommendations on the food and the specials for the evening. We were very impressed. Will definitely come back.

This was somewhere I’d wanted to pay a visit to for a long time but had for one reason or another so far failed to. I’m extremely glad I have finally done so as it was a very rewarding dining experience. As seems to be the case anywhere with me at the moment my party were the only diners for a large part of the night but I never once got the impression that our greeting from Rafael himself or the attentiveness of our waitress would not have been just as warm and friendly had the restaurant been full. We were guided through the menu by the man himself and his pride in the dishes on offer was infectious. I opted for the lambs’ kidneys to start and they were fantastically well cooked. My vegetable tart main course was also very good although I was rather jealous of the stuffed chicken dish with looked delicious. All main courses were served with separate servings of perfectly cooked carrot, broccoli and saffron infused potatoes and cauliflower. The house red was very drinkable and well priced at £14.90. Main list wines range from around £21 up to about £40. This is a gem of a restaurant and should be on everyone’s visit list. Made my second visit here last Friday night and everything was as good as the last time. Started with a great soufflé, main was very well cooked venison and nicely done veg. The dessert escapes me but no complaints on that score either.