Saturday 8 October 2011

Is Cardiff a rubbish place to eat out? Some slightly ropey evidence based blogging.


With the release of The Good Food Guide 2012 and Michelin Guide 2012, it’s worth taking stock of how Cardiff fares in the guide in comparison to the other cities of the UK.

Cardiff is frequently berated by myself and others for a lack of quality dining options. But do the statistics really show that Cardiff is punching below its weight? I thought I’d a try a little bit of shonky evidence based blogging using the aforementioned guides to try and find out the answer.

All of my population stats have come from Wikipedia and I thought it would be best to look purely at city population sizes and not wider surrounds for the sake of a fair comparison. Michelin stats have come from this pdf and Good Food Guide stats were counted from a paper copy of the book whilst sat in front of the X-factor (I’m afraid Kitty may have thrown me off my counting flow).

Let’s look at Cardiff first. We’re the 10th largest city in the UK with a population of 341,054. In the Michelin guide we have no stars and 2 Bib Gourmands. Meanwhile in The Good Food Guide there are 5 entries with an average score of 2. It doesn’t seem great but let’s compare it to the rest of the UK.

Cardiff Michelin 2012 entries:
Chai Street – Bib Gourmand
Mint & Mustard – Bib Gourmand

Cardiff Good Food Guide entries:
Ffresh – Cooking score 1
Garcon Brasserie Francaise – Cooking score 1
Mint & Mustard – Cooking score 2
Patagonia – Cooking score 3
Woods Brasserie – Cooking score 3

City
Population Size
Number of Michelin starred restaurants
Number of Bib Gourmands
Number of Good Food Guide entries
London
7,172,091
55
45
357
Birmingham
970,892
3
0
12
Glasgow
629,501
0
1
9
Liverpool
469,017
0
0
7
Leeds
443,247
0
1
10
Manchester
441,200
0
0
9
Sheffield
439,866
1
1
8
Edinburgh
430,082
5
1
24
Bristol
420,556
1
2
12
Cardiff
341,054
0
2
5
Leicester
330,574
0
0
3
Coventry
303,475
0
0
0
Kingston upon Hull
301,416
0
0
0
Total
12,692,971
65
53
456
Total in UK
62,262,000
145
117
this would take forever for me to count

What’s immediately clear from the stats is that Cardiff doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb for being a gastronomic wasteland. We have the same number of Michelin starred restaurants (i.e. none) as 7 other of the 13 largest cities, we hold the joint second largest number of bib gourmands out of the 13 largest cities in the UK and our number of Good Food Guide entries seems fair for the size of our city.

However, looking closer, it’s pretty clear that other than London and Edinburgh, the UK’s 13 largest cities are pretty rubbish at high end dining. In fact it’s only London that kicks ass as far as Michelin is concerned. With only 11.5% of the UK population they hold a whopping 38% of the UK’s Michelin stars and 38% of the UK’s Bib Gourmands. In contrast outside of London, the other top 12 cities combined have 8.9% of the UK’s population yet only 6.9% of the UK’s Michelin stars and 6.8% of the UK’s Bib Gourmands.  

So what conclusions can we draw? If you want to live somewhere where you don’t have to moan about eating out options then I suggest a move to London or perhaps one of the UK’s few gastronomic hotspots (think Ludlow or Bray). Other than that everywhere seems to be just as good (or as bad) as each other. 

7 comments:

  1. Interesting piece and a great bit of research... it's a line of reasoning that works for theatre in the provinces too and having done work around this I would imagine that the conclusions would be similar.

    As you say, they're smaller populations with many, many fewer tourists (sorry Cardiff and Hull - my home town, but it's true). Without the influx of this 'fresh meat' for restaurateurs, the number of people who splash £50-£70 a head on fine dining is a small pool (and limited regardless of the economy). These people won't want to eat at the same handful of restaurants repeatedly and it isn't worth taking the risk on the high production values so often needed when 'going for a star'.

    Good piece, it's a frustration, but not one I can see changing, even with the efforts of some local heroes, Antony Flynn in Leeds for example.

    Rich - @richmajor
    www.grumblinggourmet.com

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  2. Agreed. If there was a Michelin starred restaurant in Cardiff it's not like I'd be going there every month. It's why Michelin starred places tend to be in London or Edinburgh (which have the tourist turnover), destination country hotels which attract a sufficient level of affluent holidaymakers or at a push wealthy suburbs. Sustaining a fine dining restaurant in a city centre seems to be the exception rather than the norm.

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  3. those kind of people around the other UK cities would not spend that kind of money (on the nights they would most likely spend it) in the city centre. the urban night time economy is simply not for them.

    the key difference for me is that only London & Edinburgh of the UK cities (on the whole) have serious money living in the city itself. Most other places the money has moved out, far afield, and that's where the big dining money gets spent, where your walk to and from the car will not ruin your expensive evening.
    - sad but true I think.
    illuminating piece of analysis anyway.

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  4. Very interesting post. I agree with the above though, as much as I would like a Michelin starred restaurant in Cardiff, I think most people would still prefer Nando's sadly :(

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  5. I can vouch for Edinburgh I miss the excellent selection of Thai restaurants...

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  6. Grumbling Gourmet - Cardiff has "many, many fewer tourists" ??

    It received over 18 million visitors in 2010!! So I'm afraid your statement is quite clearly "untrue"

    yourlastmouthful-blog.com - actually most people I know in Cardiff would welcome more quality independant dining establishments and less of the rubbish chain-style restaurants, so you are way off base there

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  7. I am a student from Norway and I find Cardiff as a great place to go out and eat! I love Jamie's Italian and the red hot buffe have something for everyone! :)

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