AN innovative Pembrokeshire restaurant inspired by a couple’s culture has just been named the best of its kind in Wales.
The pan-Asian cuisine served up by Lokky’s won the honour at this week’s Golden Chopsticks Awards 2022.
The odds were stacked in favour of the Best Restaurant in Wales award coming back to Pembrokeshire, as Lokky’s sister restaurant, The Dragon Palace, was also amongst the three shortlisted.
But also up for honours was the acclaimed Gigi Gao from Swansea’s Maritime Quarter which was aiming to take the accolade for the third year in a row.
“It was a lovely experience to hear Lokky’s announced as winner,” admitted owner Lok Cheung, 38, whose family have been behind the Dragon Palace at Pentlepoir for more than a decade.
Lok, wife Jenny and baby Aeliana and members of staff made the journey to the Grosvenor Hotel in London for the ceremony on Monday September 26.
The Golden Chopstick Awards, co-founded by Gok Wan, celebrates the enormous contribution of east and south-east Asian cuisine to the UK catering industry and champions those who work within it.
Lok added: “We are truly humbled, it’s such a great honour to win such a prestigious award but it is also indicative of the amount of passion and hard work that all the staff at Lokky’s have given in this last year.
"It’s been a tough ride, what with opening up a new restaurant post-Covid, but we’ve managed to ride the storm and we do hope that our little bit of success can help motivate other start-up businesses to do the same especially during these troubling times."
Lokky’s is in Wooden, near Saundersfoot, a few hundred yards from the Dragon Palace at Pentlepoir.
The idea of the restaurant came after Lok and Jenny bought the Woodridge Inn to run as a pub and hotel three years ago.
“What we wanted to do is offer people food that we are good at, something a bit different for Pembrokeshire, and we came up with the idea of pan-Asian," Lok explained.
“So we have flavours from Thailand, Korea, the Phillipines, Japan and China, and it’s just worked really well.
"We still do Sunday lunches - we don’t want to take those off the menu because they are so popular and they feature a lot of Asian vegetables and Asian style cooking for meats, with a soy sauce-based gravy.
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"We're super proud to bring the Best Restaurant in Wales award home to Pembrokeshire, and we’ve got plenty planned for the future, including expanding our menu to include a wider range of dishes to extending the restaurant grounds with a new conservatory/function space.
"Lokky’s and the Woodridge Hotel is also working in conjunction with The Dragon Palace to create a wedding venue for future events."
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