Home boy

Staffing at Le Gallois, Cardiff's award-winning restaurant, is both a nightmare and a delight. On the one hand, chef-proprietor Padrig Jones is faced with the problem of not being able to get enough quality chefs to fill his kitchen. On the other, he knows that more than half of the 11 full-time staff employed at the 50-seat restaurant are committed to the business for life.

How can he be so sure? For the simple reason that, besides Padrig, there are four other members of the extended Jones family working at Le Gallois. Moreover, family membership will be further boosted when Karen Pugh, who works front of house, marries Padrig in the summer. It's a set-up more akin to that found in rural France than in a provincial British city.

Teamwork

"It works fantastically well," Jones says. "We're all in this together and all pull our weight to get things done and help each other out if one of us can't be here. Sometimes there might be a few screams and shouts, but things are always sorted out quickly between us."

The fact that Jones has such solid family support behind him - both emotional and practical - has undoubtedly contributed to the restaurant's considerable success during its first 21 months in business. It has already picked up several awards, including the AA Welsh Restaurant of the Year for 2000 and the Out to Lunch Award in The Red Book Eat Well in Wales. And business today is more than triple that which it was achieving when it opened in June 1998.

London stint

The family joined forces when Jones returned to his home town of Cardiff after five years working at top-flight London establishments. As well as three years at the Hilton on Park Lane and a year at The Canteen, he did stages at Le Gavroche, La Tante Claire, Chez Nico at Ninety Park Lane, and Harvey's, Marco Pierre White's original restaurant. On his return to home soil, Jones worked at the Cardiff Bay hotel, but soon realised he missed the buzz of a busy restaurant service.

Luck was with him. Quail's, a long-established French restaurant in the city, came on the market, and Jones realised that here was his chance to achieve his long-held ambition of opening his own restaurant. His timing was perfect, as sister Elen and brother-in-law Francis Dupuy were also looking to set up their own business, and his father Graham, formerly head of drama at HTV, was looking for a change of career.

Their first task was replacing the traditional interior with a brighter, more contemporary look before the eaterie could reopen as Le Gallois (the Welshman).

Every family member has an area of speciality. Jones's parents, Graham and Anne - who in the past have run a bed and breakfast business - are responsible for accounts and marketing; Francis looks after the wines and heads the front of house with Karen; and Elen runs the bar. All this means that Jones is able to concentrate solely on the food.

Acting the part

"For Dad, it has been the biggest change," he says. "Now he will even do the laundry and iron the chefs' whites. He is a great motivator and likes getting everyone ready for each service. After so many years in drama, he regards each session as a performance."

Jones has just launched his sixth seasonal menu since opening the restaurant and describes it as his best so far. "It takes time to work through ideas and get the right balance between dishes," he says.

The French classical cooking he has spent years perfecting in other establishments provides the foundation for his food, but a love of Mediterranean flavours and produce means that his dishes are enhanced by the tastes of southern Europe.

Italian influences are strong, particularly with risottos, which sell well both as starters and main courses. In fact, there is always a risotto on the menu, whatever the season. Incarnations include a scallop risotto and a rich-flavoured starter of chicken livers, cèpes and Madeira (£5.95), inspired by a chicken liver parfait that appeared on previous menus.

Scallops were a big hit on the last menu, too. Seared queen scallops form an integral part of the dish, with a light vegetable nage providing the liquid, and the addition of a few drops of chilli sauce giving it a kick. The scallops' flavour is intensified by the addition, at the last moment, of powdered scallop corals.

The scallop powder, made from corals that are dried out in a low oven overnight until rock-hard and then ground down, is an idea picked up from Gordon Ramsay. "He is definitely the man of the moment," says Jones. "I wish I'd spent some time working in his kitchen."

Jones would love to include more Welsh produce on his menu, but finds an inconsistency of supply prevents him from doing so. It has taken him the best part of a year to source meat from within the principality to the high standard he requires. "I'm now getting some fantastic lamb and beef from Welsh Quality Meats in Haverfordwest," he says. "Their salt-marsh lamb is from the Gower peninsular and provides as good a flavour as French pré-salé lamb."

Quality produce

Most fruit, vegetables and herbs are sourced from France through Chef des Chefs. Jones says only Marks & Spencer and Tesco in Cardiff provide produce such as lettuce at the quality he demands "and retail prices are obviously not a practical option".

As for the freshest, best-quality fish, Jones relies on an efficient overnight delivery service from Channel Fisheries in Brixham, Devon. "I pay a premium, but I can't find fish like it in Cardiff."

A taste of Wales is apparent, though, in one of Le Gallois's most popular main-course dishes - roast fillet of cod with cheese and herb crumb, spinach, mustard mash and Penclawdd cockle gravy (£13.50). "The cockles come from the Gower peninsular and add a fantastic flavour to the gravy."

They are cooked with shallots, garlic and white wine. The resulting juice is combined with a reduced chicken stock and finished off with a squeeze of lemon and some chives. The cod - topped with a tomato fondue, mushroom duxelle, and brioche/Gruyère cheese mixture - is served with the gravy, into which the cooked cockles are dispersed.

Another big seller is an assiette of duck with red cabbage, rösti potato and Puy lentil dressing (£16.95), in which Jones combines pan-fried duck breast, duck black pudding and foie gras on a port wine sauce cut through with balsamic vinegar. While most dishes on the à la carte menu, which offers a choice of 11 starters, 11 main courses and eight desserts, are replaced as a new menu is introduced, the cod and duck dishes have now appeared on several successive menus.

Desserts always include a crème brûlée (perhaps flavoured with pink gin, amaretto or Earl Grey) and a daily changing tarte tatin (it could be apple served with clotted cream or vanilla ice-cream, pear with bitter chocolate or prune and Armagnac ice-cream, or pineapple with coconut ice-cream). French cheeses dominate the cheeseboard, except for one, a semi-soft Welsh cheese called Celtic Promise.