Delicious feed in mountain village enough to fuel Llanberis walkers

The Padarn Hotel is located in the mountain village of Llanberis at the foot of Y Wyddfa. Their 1085 Bistro is named after the highest mountain in Wales, which just happens to be 1,085 meters high.

The 1085 bistro also rides mountain high in the Trip Advisor charts for the whole of north Wales. It is positioned about a hundred meters away from the scenic and picturesque Padarn Lake.

The Bistro is spread over three uniquely themed rooms - Y Wyddfa Room, with views over the mountains, The Film Room, with posters of blockbuster movies which been filmed in the Llanberis area such as First Knight and The Boat Room with views of the lake and a pirate ship for the children to play in.

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We sat by a window table, which had wonderful views of the famous mountain and we were asked if we wanted anything to drink almost straight away. The pub offers a wide range of well-known beers including Fosters, Heineken, Birra Moretti, Amstel, John Smith’s, Guinness and Strongbow, as well as some locally brewed cask ales from the aptly named Snowdon Brewery. They also stock a range of local gins from The Aber Falls Distillery.

We decided to opt for the local brewery and ordered a half of the Snowdon IPA and a half of the Snowdon lager. Both were hoppy, juicy, and thirst-quenching. The bistro menu is small, which I imagine has been done for efficiently and financial reasons but includes all the usual crowd pleasers such as burgers, curries and fish and chips.

The gentleman on the next table was tackling the massive mountain gourmet steak burger, which looked as big as Eryri itself. The double steak burger looked more of an eating challenge than a meal, but he somehow put it all away and deserved a round of applause.

My wife opted to go for the smaller version of the steak burger. It was a 6 oz bwydlyn gourmet burger served in a toasted sourdough roll with smoked streaky bacon, cheddar cheese, red onion marmalade, lettuce, tomato and coleslaw.

It may have been the smaller version of the burger but it was still quite a mouthful. The amount of chips on the large plate was very generous as she individually dipped them into the tangy homemade 1085 burger chutney.

I decided to go for the good old-fashioned pub grub of sausages and mash. The bwydlyn pork sausages were a true farm-to-fork story with farm-assured pork from Harlech. The three fat sausages were served on top of a mountain of black pudding mash.

The creamy and buttery mashed potato worked perfectly with the small chunks of meaty and spicy black pudding. I also poured a tasty caramelized red onion gravy over the peak of the fluffy mash.

My wife remarked that she was surprised that the bistro sold any puddings, due to the size of the portions served. However, we then saw a group of hungry walkers march and could see they were absolutely starving after various hiking pursuits.

Desserts included chocolate truffle cakes, lemon tarts, cheesecakes or various ice creams. We opt to share a hot chocolate fondant with caramel ice cream after my wife declared she was too full to eat a pudding by herself.

The chocolate fondant soon collapsed after the caramel ice cream gloriously melted over the top of it. A delicious Belgian chocolate sauce oozed out of the melt in your mouth soft sponge.

Annoyingly, my wife’s appetite seemed to return after she took one mouthful of the gooey decadent fondant and it was then a race to the bottom of the pudding dish as we were both armed with spoons. After sipping up our beers and paying our dues, we walked some calories off with a visit to the lone tree by the lake.

In conclusion, we might not have scaled the top of any of the mountains but we ate like we had conquered the three peaks challenge.