Gareth Ward's Ynyshir
Eglwys Fach, Wales, UK
Situated in the beautiful Welsh countryside, Gareth Ward’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant delivers a unique culinary experience like no other. The atmosphere is intimate, cosy and luxurious, yet holds an exciting environment with their resident DJ and glistening disco ball above diners’ heads. The kitchen uses VCS2 units and VCR2 units under the counter. All are used to cool their pristine ingredients, crafted boards and culinary tools. We spoke with Gareth to see what he thinks of his Adande drawers after over 10 years of use.
Given Ynyshir’s reputation for innovative Michelin star cuisine, how do our drawers support your creative process?
The Adande drawers support what we do really well. They fit beautifully and slickly within the kitchen. They’re very simple to use. The whole design lets us open our full potential, using them in service, especially. So, yeah, it’s a really big part of the success in the kitchen.
Can you walk us through how you handle a premium ingredient from the moment it arrives?
We stop the kitchen when the really special stuff comes in and everybody gets involved! These ingredients get handled slick and fast and get put away straight to where they need to go so that there’s no temperature change, from going out of the van and into the Adande’s. So, the drawer fridges work really well for that because there’s such a big accessible space in the insulated container. So, when you’ve got half a side of tuna, they just wipe the drawers down and then just drop it straight into the drawer so it stays chilled before it goes into the salt chamber. They’re amazing.
Do you have the drawers as a fridge, freezer or regularly switch them over when needed?
So, the kitchen’s designed around the menu and each part of the kitchen has either a freezer or a split freezer fridge or two freezers, depending on what comes from that part of the kitchen. That’s the beauty of these drawers, that you can actually set the kitchen up around them which makes it really easy to work.
What do you look out for when choosing kitchen equipment?
I look out for the best. I’m a big believer in you buy it once. You might pay more for it. But if it’s the best, it will last a lot longer. You can always go cheap, but you’re guaranteed to be replacing it within a few months. So, it’s always the best. Speak to people, speak to friends, do your research, don’t just buy anything. Then be loyal and stick to a brand that you love. I’ve been cooking for 27 years, and I’ve used a lot of different equipment and I have the ones that I know will always support me and I can rely on.
“If I were designing a new kitchen tomorrow, I would 100% have Adande drawers again.”
Do you have any ingredients that are particularly sensitive to temperature fluctuations?
Yeah, the tuna is very, very sensitive to temperature. You’ve gotta get it it’s not so bad with heat, but cold, if you have it too cold, it really affects it. So it’s really important that you have very good fridges to, make sure that you don’t it doesn’t drop too cold. Otherwise, the texture changes and ruins it.
Being in the beautiful Welsh countryside, I gather you guys care a lot about sustainability?
So, sustainability is important to us. We source a lot of stuff around here, like the beehives, and we also forage a lot from the area. We also have the birch trees, which we tap out the maple and we draw out the water, and then we reduce that down to the syrup and then we store it in the Adande drawers.