Under the leadership of its Tenby chef, a restaurant in Milford Haven has landed a leading tourism award just 18 months after opening its doors.

The restaurant at the new Tŷ Hotel Milford Waterfront, Dulse secured the top honours in The Place to Eat category at the 2023 Croeso Awards organised by Visit Pembrokeshire to celebrate the very best of the county’s vibrant tourism sector.

At this month’s awards ceremony at Pembrokeshire College, Tŷ Hotel Milford Waterfront was also announced as a runner-up in the Hotel of the Year category after being shortlisted as a finalist for the second year running. 

Named after an edible native seaweed which features on the menu, Dulse impressed the judges at a restaurant tasting for shortlisted nominations, scoring maximum points with two of the assessors.

Dulse is also one of only five restaurants in Pembrokeshire to be listed in the highly respected Harden’s restaurant guide and its “technically excellent” dishes using “flavoursome, quality ingredients” were praised when Visit Wales bestowed a four-star grading on Tŷ Hotel within weeks of it opening last year.

Every table in Dulse restaurant and bar enjoys breathtaking views over Milford Marina and the working harbour, and the hotel provides the ideal base to explore everything the Pembrokeshire coast and countryside has to offer.

The restaurant is headed up by Tenby’s Simon Crockford, a former Wales National Chef of the Year who left the position of Executive Restaurant Chef at the five-star Celtic Manor Resort to launch the new venue in April 2022.

Simon said: “I am so proud of the whole team at Dulse for winning this award. As a Pembrokeshire lad originally, to be given the chance to name the restaurant and lead on the concept was beyond humbling for me. Then to recruit the team locally and open such an exciting restaurant in an absolutely stunning location was a real privilege.

“We have a young team but I always knew that with passion and staying true to Pembrokeshire and all its fantastic produce from both the land and the sea, we could create something really special. The feedback from guests has been amazing since the day we opened and to win this award so quickly, with competition from so many fantastic restaurants, is the icing on the cake.”

In partnership with the Port of Milford Haven, Tŷ Hotel Milford Waterfront is managed and operated by The Celtic Collection behind Wales’s iconic Celtic Manor Resort. For more information and to book, visit the website.