Hefin Roberts takes head chef role at Château Rhianfa on Anglesey

Former Y Parlwr chef Hefin Roberts has taken on a new role at the Grade II-listed Château Rhianfa hotel in North Wales with plans to turn it into a food-led destination.

It will see him move east across the Isle of Anglesey and leave his role as executive chef at the Sandy Mount House in Rhosneigr.

Roberts will join the 27-bed hotel as head chef on 25 March and oversee the F&B operation which currently includes 40-cover restaurant Le Dragon Rouge, a 70-cover banqueting hall, and several private dining rooms, resident lounges and an outdoor patio and courtyard area.

He plans to refresh the menus across the hotel – with a focus on fine dining – offering guests breakfast, lunch, dinner, afternoon tea and picnics.

The French-style château is already known as a wedding destination on Anglesey, with 36 booked for the coming season, and the team hopes to boost the events side of the business to include more private dining.

For the last seven years Roberts has been working for the Out of the Blue Group looking after the 300-cover beach house restaurant and bar Sandy Mount House in the tourist hotspot of Rhosneigr.

Last year, he launched a spin-off 10-course tasting menu at the 16-cover Y Parlwr restaurant, which the owners closed in January due to the “persistent financial challenges” facing the industry.

Prior to this, Roberts was head chef at Bull's Head Inn in Beaumaris, during which time he gained the pub three AA rosettes.

“It was heartbreaking to close Y Parlwr,” Roberts told The Caterer. “We’d only just had the AA Inspectors in, and we were told we were on course for three or above rosettes, we just needed another inspection to confirm the standards.”

When the general manager of Château Rhianfa – which is owned by Interesting Hotels – got in touch, Roberts saw an opportunity to turn the historic hotel into a food-led destination.

Château Rhianfa’s last head chef Jason Hughes, who represented Wales on Great British Menu in 2018, left several years ago and the kitchen has since been made up of predominantly agency staff, with only two full-time employees. Roberts plans to beef up the team to five and start developing the menu beyond the current a la carte offering in the main restaurant.

“When I went to see the site, I immediately saw how much potential Château Rhianfa has, with so many nooks and crannies, which gets me excited about what it could possibly be,” he said.

“It’ll be a challenge I will relish and I’m hungry to get my style of cooking in front of guests. There will be a lot of bedding in to do, but once we have our feet under the table, I will start to showcase my food.”