Bryn Williams at Porth Eirias Review

Opened in 2015, right on the seafront in the Welsh town of Colwyn Bay, Bryn Williams at Porth Eirias is a multi award winning restaurant and long-time feature in both the Michelin and AA guides. With those awards and of course a very well regarded chef-owner, I was eminently hopeful (despite some rather inconsistent online reviews from regular punters) of seeing some quality cooking as I rocked up for lunch with my wife and two children, on a cold October Wednesday.

There's a good sized pay and display car park next to the restaurant, although on the day of our visit the payment machine wasn't working properly and only accepting coins (the card functionality was broken and there's not even a pay-by-app option, pretty incredible in 2026). I asked on arrival at the restaurant if I could swap a ten pound note for some coins, but the gentleman reassured us the operator of the car park knows there is an issue and we wouldn't be charged, which was appreciated.

The dining room has a lot of full height glazing to make the most of the sea and beach views, and we were sat right next to a window which was a perfectly decent spot. It's clear the restaurant is a few years old and has seen a lot of traffic in that time, but I still liked the feel of the room, it has the kind of vibe you'd expect from a decent seaside restaurant for me.

On offer at lunch is a full three course carte menu, plus a solid drinks list with a good selection of non-alcoholic options including seven mocktails; my wife and daughter enjoyed the non-alcoholic cucumber mojito. There's no children's menu but our waiter did let us know they could do half portions of some dishes plus a couple of other not on the menu options if needed.

The starters didn't take long to arrive, and lunch began for me with the rarebit, topped with a white crab salad on a stout and onion sourdough. This was tasty and everything I'd hoped for really from a good rarebit dish, I'd happily eat that again any time.

My wife too enjoyed her confit duck terrine, whilst my son tucked into a very tasty (and good sized) soda bread roll served with cultured butter from the snacks menu. My daughter also had a snack as a starter, in her case the Trealy Farm charcuterie which consisted of three small but tasty bites. It's fair to say we all enjoyed our starters here which was a promising start to the meal.

I had thought the relatively swift delivery of the starters would be indicative of a nice well paced lunch, but that was sadly not the case, as the mains took a noticeably long time to arrive. My dish of smoked haddock was just about worth the wait though; the haddock was decently cooked and flavoursome, sat atop some nice crushed potato and a really good mustard beurre blanc sauce - it was a very tasty dish. There was even a perfectly poached little egg on top for good measure. The only thing I didn't like about this dish was a stray missed fish bone in my haddock, but hey, I didn't choke so it could have been worse.

My wife and daughter both went for the catch of the day fish fingers, served with fries and crushed peas. I have to be completely honest here, it was an absolutely abysmal dish, and one of the worst mains (if not the worst) we've had on a two rosette menu. The fish was overcooked and under seasoned, and the batter was chewy with no positive flavour either; it was a virtually inedible dish (both portions were equally bad). I genuinely can't believe (and still can't later whilst writing this review) that the same kitchen served both this and my very enjoyable main course; it just seems impossible that two dishes with such a massive gulf in quality could come from the same restaurant.

The accompanying fries at least were fine (thank goodness for that at least) and my son was perfectly happy with a portion of those as his main course too.

Despite some very inconsistent main courses, we pushed on and ordered dessert (I know, I'm such a hero). My dark chocolate fondant with hazelnut ice cream was actually a pretty decent effort; the fondant was well made and tasty and the ice cream carried the promised flavour too. My wife and daughter both tried the signature baked alaska; this was fairly pleasant but the sugar content was very high throughout all the elements, and my wife in particular struggled to eat it. For my son, a not-on-the-menu single scoop of vanilla ice cream was the order of the day which was fine.

And so, after collecting our bill (with no automatically included service charge) a largely enjoyable but curious lunch came to an end. Overall we did enjoy our visit here; it's a nice spot and the service was good too with no issues during our meal. My three courses were enjoyable but some of the other dishes we were served were very poor, it was an unexpectedly mixed bag given the awards the restaurant holds.