Restaurant in Penarth, United Kingdom
Seven tables, no menu, book early.
Home holds a Michelin star and seven tables in Penarth — book as far ahead as possible. James Sommerin and his daughter Georgia run an eight-course surprise menu for around £145 per person at dinner, with a more accessible three-course lunch at approximately £55. The atmosphere is intimate and theatrical. This is the defining reason to eat in Penarth.
Home holds a Michelin star, a La Liste Leading Restaurants score of 80 points (2025), and exactly seven linen-clad tables in a slate-grey room on the seafront in Penarth. Seats are scarce and the menu is a surprise — you will not know what you are eating until a printed version is placed in front of you at the end of the meal. If that format suits you, book immediately. This is one of the most personal and technically accomplished restaurant experiences in Wales, and the waiting list reflects it.
Penarth is a quiet Victorian seaside town a short distance south of Cardiff, the kind of place that has a pier, a promenade, and, until recently, no particular culinary claim on a discerning diner's attention. Home changes that. James Sommerin's decision to open here rather than in a capital city was deliberate, and the result is a restaurant that has become the defining reason to visit Penarth at all. For anyone exploring our full Penarth restaurants guide, Home is not a stop on a longer itinerary — it is the itinerary.
The room at 1 Royal Buildings is shielded from the street by floor-to-ceiling curtains; you ring the doorbell to enter. Inside, the atmosphere is darkly theatrical: deep slate-grey walls, retro wood panelling, and a broad open kitchen lit with the kind of focused warmth that makes the cooking feel like a performance you have been invited to watch. The soundtrack leans toward dreampop. The noise level is low enough for conversation at every hour of service. If you are choosing between a loud, high-energy tasting menu room and something more hypnotic and contained, Home sits firmly at the contained end , and that is a recommendation, not a caveat.
The kitchen team is, in practice, James Sommerin and his daughter Georgia. Front of house is handled by other family members. This is not a gimmick. The scale of the operation is what makes the precision possible: seven tables, two cooks, a single no-choice menu. First-timers should know that you are not selecting anything when you arrive. You are committing to eight courses of whatever the kitchen has decided is leading that evening. The printed menu handed to you at the end of the meal is your first full account of what you ate.
Verified inspection notes describe a menu that moves between technical showmanship and something closer to warmth. Documented highlights include Jersey Royals cooked in home-smoked butter with tarragon emulsion and pork crackling, liquid pea ravioli with crispy sage and Serrano ham finished with Parmesan emulsion (described in multiple accounts as a signature), and corn-fed chicken with potato and olive oil purée, Carmarthen ham, broad beans, globe artichoke and Madeira sauce. Desserts include honey and chamomile custard with strawberry sorbet and warm doughnuts, and a passion fruit ice cream finished tableside with liquid nitrogen, chocolate, granola and toffee sauce. The cinnamon bun served at the close of the meal is a deliberate personal gesture, connected to family memory. None of this is static: the menu changes regularly and the price moves with it. The current benchmark is approximately £145 per person for eight courses at dinner.
The wine list runs to around 250 selections with 1,200 bottles in inventory, with high-end choices available by the glass alongside more accessible options. A corkage fee of $50 applies if you bring your own. The list skews global with California among its noted strengths.
Home opens for dinner Wednesday through Saturday (6:30 PM to 9 PM) and for lunch on Friday and Saturday (12 PM to 2 PM). It is closed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Lunch offers a cheaper entry point: three courses are available for around £55 per person, making Friday or Saturday lunch the most accessible version of the experience for first-timers who want to assess the kitchen before committing to the full dinner investment. If your primary goal is the complete eight-course format and the full theatrical atmosphere of the open kitchen at night, dinner is the right choice. For a first visit on a tighter budget, Friday lunch is the practical answer.
Reservations: Hard to secure , book as far in advance as possible; seven tables and a small team mean availability is consistently limited. Budget: Approximately £145 per person for eight courses at dinner; around £55 per person for three courses at lunch. Wine and service are additional. Dress: No dress code is specified in available data, but the atmosphere , intimate, theatrical, candlelit , suggests smart casual as a sensible baseline. Groups: Seven tables make large group bookings structurally difficult; this is a venue leading suited to two or four. Getting there: Penarth is accessible from Cardiff by rail and road; check our Penarth experiences guide for wider planning. Nearby: Touring Club (Modern British) is the other notable option in Penarth for a meal that does not require months of advance planning.
For context on what a Michelin-starred tasting menu at this price level delivers elsewhere in the UK, see Ynyshir Hall in Machynlleth, Moor Hall in Aughton, L'Enclume in Cartmel, and Midsummer House in Cambridge. For rural destination dining with a similar owner-chef intimacy, Hand and Flowers in Marlow and Gidleigh Park in Chagford are useful reference points. For international equivalents in the family-run, small-room tasting menu format, Maison Lameloise in Chagny and Frantzén in Stockholm represent the upper end of the comparison set. Also worth considering in the broader region: hide and fox in Saltwood and Opheem in Birmingham for starred cooking at a similar price tier.
| Venue | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Home | ££££ | — |
| Restaurant Gordon Ramsay | ££££ | — |
| CORE by Clare Smyth | ££££ | — |
| The Ledbury | ££££ | — |
| Sketch, The Lecture Room and Library | ££££ | — |
| Dinner by Heston Blumenthal | ££££ | — |
A quick look at how Home measures up.
The surprise menu at Home changes regularly and is delivered by a kitchen team of two — James Sommerin and his daughter Georgia — with no printed menu in advance. Given the format, contact them before booking if you have dietary requirements. With seven tables and a no-choice structure, the kitchen has limited flexibility compared to à la carte venues, and it is better to confirm directly rather than assume accommodations are available.
Dinner is the full experience: eight surprise courses at approximately £145 per person, in a darkly atmospheric room that has been described as evoking a 1960s recording studio. Lunch on Friday and Saturday offers a shorter, less expensive format, with three courses at £55 per person. If budget is a factor or you want to try the kitchen before committing to dinner, lunch is a reasonable entry point — but the theatre of the evening service is where Home earns its Michelin star.
Yes, for the right diner. At approximately £145 per person for eight courses, Home delivers Michelin-starred cooking from James Sommerin and his daughter Georgia in a room with seven tables — a level of attention and intimacy that larger tasting-menu restaurants cannot match. Verified inspection highlights include liquid pea ravioli with serrano ham and a tableside passion fruit ice cream dipped in liquid nitrogen, suggesting the price is justified by both technique and theatre. If surprise menus are not your format, this is not the venue.
There is no ordering at Home — the menu is a surprise, and the printed version is only presented at the end of the meal. Verified highlights from inspection include Jersey Royals cooked in home-smoked butter, liquid pea ravioli with crispy sage and serrano ham, and a passion fruit ice cream finished tableside in liquid nitrogen. The tear-and-share cinnamon bun at the close is a documented signature touch. Trust the kitchen; the format is the point.
No. Home has seven linen-clad tables and an open kitchen as its centrepiece — there is no bar seating documented in the venue record. The space is intimate and reservation-driven, with a format built around the surprise tasting menu rather than drop-in or counter dining. Book a table or plan a different visit.
At approximately £145 per person for eight courses, Home sits at the upper end of Welsh fine dining — but it holds a Michelin star (2024) and a La Liste score of 80 points (2025), credentials that put it in legitimate company nationally. The kitchen team is essentially James Sommerin and his daughter, which means the cooking is personal in a way that larger brigade-run restaurants cannot replicate. For a comparable Michelin-starred tasting menu in Wales, Ynyshir Hall charges considerably more. At this price, Home represents genuine value for the format.
Yes, and it suits occasions where the experience itself is the event. Seven tables, a surprise menu, and a family-run kitchen and front-of-house create an atmosphere that feels personal rather than corporate. The room — slate grey walls, retro wood panelling, an open kitchen — has been described in inspection as dramatically atmospheric. Book as far ahead as possible; availability at seven tables is consistently limited, and a last-minute booking for a milestone occasion is unlikely to work.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
