World-renowned chef Marco Pierre White surprised the owners of a Pembrokeshire restaurant by leaving a message of admiration scrawled across their menu. The much-revered TV chef 'defaced' the menu he was given at Rib & Oyster in Kilgetty to tell the owners how much he loves their restaurant.
The restaurant, which only has 11 tables, has been open for just a year-and-a-half, but already has a huge reputation. This was Pierre White's second trip to the restaurant after he popped in over the summer and left proclaiming to have had "the best meal he'd eaten in a long time."
His praise on his second visit was no less glowing. After a meal of scallops and a seafood platter with John Dory, lobster, and halibut, the chef wrote a message of praise on the menu: "Gavin, Lucy and team. I love your restaurant with respect and admiration M.P.W. x" and signed it off with the date of his visit, February 11.
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Posting the menu on Facebook, the team at the Rib & Oyster wrote: "You don't mind your menu getting defaced by Marco Pierre White." But it wasn't until the following day that Gavin Davies' wife Lucy found the handwritten note. "It was lovely, because he's the world's best chef, to know that he likes our restaurant," the fisherman-turned-restaurant-owner said. Gavin says he has supplied the chef with fish in the past, as well as chef Pierre Koffmann.
"Cheryl and Deb [our chefs] loved cooking for him. They were nervous, but they did a really good job," Gavin said, adding that the pair knew of Marco's visit just two hours in advance.
Marco was only just able to make it into the fully-booked restaurant - luckily for him, there was a cancellation and they were able to fit him in when he rang to book a table. "He was very nice to all of the staff and was very accommodating when people wanted to take pictures," Gavin, 45, said.
A fisherman in Pembrokeshire for 20 years, Gavin never planned to have a restaurant after he started selling his catch of the day from the back of a van when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Often selling out within hours, Gavin set up a base in Kilgetty when a shop came up for rent and, what began as a fish and meat counter, has turned out into a booked-out restaurant that can count celebrity chefs and the Welsh rugby team among its regulars. You can read more about the story behind Rib & Oyster here.
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