Six by Nico Cardiff — Restaurant in Wales

Wow, what a great experience!

Let me break this down into two parts: what we loved and what went slightly wrong. We went for the Italian Road Trip course.

Let’s start with the issues:

Overall, the service was very good and pretty quick. There were several dishes included, plus two optional extras.

However, when we ordered the ox dish, the wine pairing for it was brought out—but the actual dish never came. It broke the otherwise lovely pace of the meal. I ended up finishing the wine before the food arrived. To be fair, the staff apologised and kindly gave me another glass when the dish finally came, so it was handled well, just a bit of a shame.

Later, just as dessert was about to be served, I asked about one of the extra dishes we ordered. Our waiter realised it had been forgotten and quickly sorted it. Again, not a huge issue, but another little thing.

When it came time to pay, I mentioned I’d booked through a Facebook promotion. I’m very glad I did—otherwise, it would have been £44 per person instead of £37. Plus, the promo included a welcome drink that we didn’t get. The staff explained that sometimes bookings via Facebook don’t show up properly in their system, but they adjusted the price and made us the drinks, which was appreciated. Still, if we’d paid for those drinks separately, they’d have been £10 each—not really worth it, in my opinion.

None of these were dealbreakers on their own, but they do start to add up a bit.

Also, the dining space was quite tightly packed. Not a huge problem, but as a slightly bigger guy, I would’ve appreciated just a little more elbow room.

Lastly, they added an optional 12.5% service charge. Personally, I think that’s a bit steep. I prefer when service is built into the price. I asked for it to be removed (which they did), and we left cash instead—something I always prefer to do anyway.

So, while these were all minor issues, together they just nudged the experience slightly below 5 stars for me.

Now for the good stuff:

The food was amazing—as you’ll see from the photos. Each dish and wine pairing was explained in detail, which really added to the experience.

The fish dish was the standout for me—so flavourful I wished I had a spoon to scoop up every last drop of the sauce (my partner did the same!).

The wine pairing was excellent value at £30. It wasn’t the best pairing I’ve ever had, but for the price, it was well worth it. The final wine, in particular, tasted like fizzy Vimto—lush!

The venue itself looked stunning. It was a little cramped, as mentioned, but beautifully styled and created a lovely atmosphere.

Final thoughts:

Despite a few minor hiccups, it really was a great experience. The total came to £134 for two of us: £37pp for the meal, £30pp for wine pairing, plus two extra dishes and a cocktail. Excellent value, in my opinion.

If we hadn’t had the Facebook deal or had paid the service charge, it could’ve crept over £150—and then it might not have felt quite as worth it. So I’d definitely recommend looking out for deals beforehand, and being mindful of the optional charges. (Even with the charge removed, we still left a cash tip, which feels more personal.)

We’ll definitely be going back—and next time, we’ll make sure to grab those same...

To be honest, this experience was a little underwhelming, perhaps my expectations were too high having seen countless promotions for the opening of the Cardiff branch.

The staff are all very friendly, attentive, catered to food allergies very well and explained all the dishes very well. The atmosphere in the restaurant and the decorations were great, as well as the bathrooms being clean and well-stocked. The food, however, was not that impressive. It was overall ok but lacking any wow effect.

The first course, “chips and cheese” was ok, the potato was very crisp and tasted good but the parm epsuma was not widely liked by our table. It was a slightly frothy textured parmesan soup and after one or two spoonfuls began to taste a bit sickly.

The scampi was again, ok, but nothing to write home about, the flavours worked well together.

The steak pie was a little dry but I did quite like the mushroom duxelle it was paired with.

All the components in the fish super worked very well together, it was a good blend of flavours, although the fish was a little dry also.

The last course before dessert was the smoked sausage, which also presented with several sweet and savoury flavours which all worked very well together, although again, the meat was quite dry.

I would say the dessert was the best part of this chippie tasting menu. Pictured is an alternate to the original chocolate pave due to a nut allergy. The irn bru sorbet was very refreshing and complemented the deep fried mars bar and chocolate components very well. The mars bar, although deep fried, was not sickly and had a very fun texture to chew.

All in all, if these were all individual dishes from an a la carte, the dessert is the only thing I would order again. Whilst the ambience, staff and presentation are all 4 or 5* factors of this experience, the food itself I would rate as very average. For £39 per person it does not seem like an extortionate amount or a rip off, and offers a range of very different dishes to try, but due to the lack of wow factor from the food itself, and the theme of dry meats and fish, I would find myself unlikely to return to try a different menu served here.

I have not dined at any other sixbynico branch so cannot comment on whether the quality of the food is like this everywhere or just at this particular location. As there are few “fine(r) dining” restaurants in Cardiff, this place may be worth visiting once for the experience of tasting a unique menu, though I do not think you would find it particularly...

Food was lovely, service was extremely disappointing. We came for the ‘Guilty Pleasures’ menu, and the food was great, however service throughout the whole night put a dampener on the evening.

When we arrived, the waiter couldn’t find our table, so we were stood around waiting when we could see empty tables. Once seated a different waiter came over to talk us through the menu and asked which we were interested in and just walked away after, at this point we did not think we had ordered. We then had to ask for a drinks menu, and next thing you know our starters had come out, we wouldn’t usually complain however we hadn’t completed our order as we wanted to order so ‘nibbles’ to enjoy with our drinks. When we addressed this the waiter got our nibbles quickly but was an odd experience because everything was ordered backwards. (We were lead to believe we were served by a service manager throughout the evening so it was disappointing to see this was the example being set)

After 4 courses we ended up waiting 45 minutes before course 5 arrived. We had to ask where it was and apparently there was an “error” but no apology was given. The next 2 courses then seem to come in a rush. The same waiter who explained the “error” came over to us the second we finished desert and asked if everything was alright, I asked to order a espresso but he explained “I can’t do that I’m afraid as I need this table back”. We were taken aback by this as it was totally out of our control that we had to wait 45 minutes between courses, I wish I was exaggerating this wait time but I have time stamps from the photos of each course, and it’s good job I like my partners company. After been told he needed the table back he brought over the bill without asking if we ready to pay, but then decided to take a further 10 minutes to take payment, I could have drunk my espresso in that time. Another member of staff then came over to take our payment. A large service charge was added to the bill which we politely asked to be taken off, as for the reasons mentioned above.

We would have loved the experience if an apology was given for the 45 minute wait and not to be rushed off the table at the end. We were made to feel like the wait was our fault and that we needed to leave immediately despite there being other available tables.

Such a shame after hearing great things. Would happily try alternative locations but have been let down twice by the Cardiff branch that we won’t...