Award-winning executive chef Douglas Balish at Grove of Narberth(Image: Grove of Narberth)
Sometimes just one decision in life can completely change your whole direction, and for award-winning Narberth-based chef Douglas Balish it came when his hands were in a sink washing dishes, pots and pans.
With a university course studying psychology lined up as his career pathway, the then 20-year-old started working in a restaurant kitchen washing dishes. But his work ethic and keenness meant that soon the restaurant’s staff were asking him to help them with other tasks.
Fast forward to present day and the now 40-year-old is the celebrated executive chef at luxury country hotel Grove of Narberth, and he was named Hotel Chef of the Year at the 2025 Hotel Cateys, a huge honour in his industry.
But this humble man from Toon near Glasgow is so humble that, although delighted with the accolade, he insists that the award is a team effort by all the staff. Ensure our latest news and sport headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as Preferred Source in your Google search setting
He says: “It goes to one person but that doesn’t really feel fair, one person can’t do everything, everyone’s got to be behind it and on board with it so from the kitchen and front of house one doesn’t work without the other.”
But going from the young man doing washing up to the chef of a high end hotel in the space of two decades has not been an accident, Douglas has been proactive in guiding the development of his career, including taking risks to get to this award-winning level.
He says: “When I started out I was absolutely useless, but I enjoyed doing it, so after I’d done that for a few months I couldn’t see myself sitting in a classroom for the next four years, I don’t think it would have been for me, I could see myself getting bored or distracted.
“I think I’m probably the least qualified, education-wise, in the kitchen as I just went straight into a job. I worked in Scotland for a few years but then decided that if I was going to do this I need to do it properly, so I went off to Jersey to work in a Michelin star restaurant.”
Douglas stayed at Bohemia for five years and worked his way up from the very bottom level to sous chef, then went to a two star restaurant, but his ambition was set on something even more challenging, and it was something that all seven years of gaining experience had been working towards.
There was one particular restaurant in the world that had influenced him ever since he had bought its cookbook when he was just 20. It was somewhere he had always wanted to work, but it was thousands of miles away.
He picked up the phone and called Quay in Sydney, described as Australia’s most celebrated and influential restaurants, which boasted Three Hats in the Good Food Guide for 23 consecutive years.
“It’s where I’ve always wanted to work, so I contacted the chef there and said ‘do you have any jobs’ and he said contact me if you’re ever in Australia, so I got straight on a plane, and knocked on their door as soon as I got there and started working there next day.
“It was a bit of a risk, I could have ended up having to work anywhere just to earn money, and Sydney is quite an expensive place to live so I had to get a job quickly, as I got there as I only had £2,000 in the bank.
“I thought that would last a while but the rent there was around 500 dollars per week, so I realised my savings weren’t going to last very long. Thankfully the risk paid off and it was amazing, I really, really enjoyed it.”
Douglas then got a call from Great Fosters in Surrey, where he was asked to run the restaurant and develop his ideas, he was persuaded to come back to the UK and took that restaurant from being unknown to a Michelin star in just 18 months.
This rapid rise did not go unnoticed within the industry, so then came the call from Neil Kedward, co-owner and co-founder of Grove of Narberth with wife Zoe, who asked if he would move to west Wales to spread his culinary magic.
He says: “I’d only been to Wales once before and that was Cardiff so at that time I didn’t realise what an amazing place it was, but the closer we got to Narberth, the more I saw, I thought Wales was incredible. We got through the gates of the hotel and it was March and all the daffodils were coming up and it looked incredible and I was, ‘ok then, we’re done’, it looked stunning.”
Stepping inside the once derelict country house into the hotel created by Neil and Zoe continued to enchant Douglas. He says: “It was homely, welcoming but luxury at the same time, and as soon as we walked through the front door it was like walking into somebody’s house, it was so special and that was it really from that moment on, we were seriously considering this move.”
The atmosphere and welcome that greeted Douglas that day is encapsulated into the ethos of Grove of Narberth, that it’s a place for relaxing for everyone, from popping in for tea and cake in the afternoon to staying for a long weekend in one of the beautiful bedroom suites or converted outbuildings nestled into the undulating landscape that envelops the main house.
Douglas adds: “We want people to come here and feel like they are in good hands, we want to make everything perfect for them, that they don’t want to go home, for it to be relaxing, away from stress. Yes, it’s a business, but at the end of the day the staff working here look after people, it’s what we want to do, what we’re here for.”
The Welsh welcome experienced at Grove extended to where Douglas decided to live too. He explains: “When I lived in Surrey for five years I had no idea who our next door neighbours were, but the day we moved in here the neighbours were all round, had made us a cawl, it was lovely. And we just love it here – the people, the area – it’s great. It’s an amazing place, it has it all, and the beaches are incredible.”
Since joining Grove of Narberth Douglas and his team have developed the food and drink side of the business to an award-winning level, with accolades including the 2024/2025 Michelin Key and 4 AA Rosettes for dining and, of course, Hotel Chef of the Year 2025.
The hotel as a whole has won awards too, including Tripadvisor’s 2024/2025 “Best of the Best”, placing it within the top 1% worldwide, Small Luxury Hotels of the World’s hotel of the year 2023/24, and Independent Hotel of the Year 2024 and there have been accolades for the venue’s staff too.
The pathway carved out to create the dining experience at the hotel Douglas says has been years in development, with the core of the construction of the menus always about using produce and ingredients from local suppliers and the result is a strong network of relationships.
He explains: “In the beginning it took me a while to find the suppliers and that was the hardest part, finding the people who could work with us and wanted to work with us for our special requirements, such as meat that’s aged for a certain amount of time, fish brought straight to us to be very fresh, vegetables with particular picking times. I’m quite demanding on what we get.
“This has taken a bit of time to get where it is now, but the ethos is what everything is built around, showcasing Pembrokeshire and Welsh ingredients, but doing it in a slightly different way to how it’s traditionally done in this part of the world by using our experience of working in other places and from our travels, using different cuisines to amplify the Welsh products, such as an Asian influence or using French techniques, things like that.
“The ingredients are from Wales and we try to highlight the suppliers that we’ve got because they are amazing, they are as good as anything else around the rest of the world. We want to build a relationship with people who have the same ethos, to be the best that we can be, but now we have amazing connections, we’re really lucky.”
Looking back, Douglas’ personal pathway to success has given him valuable insight that he is keen to share in the hope of helping people in the industry.
Everyone’s career development is different and personal to them but over the last two decades Douglas’ experiences has led him to believe that anyone who wants to progress in the industry needs to have a plan to learn.
He explains: “Get yourself into a job that’s a good level, if you go to somewhere that’s really, really good and learn the proper ways to do things, you can drop that experience into any sector later. Say if you wanted to do a fast food truck, and I’m all for that, if you know the right way to do things in the first place – how to get the most flavour out of things, how to get the most taste out of great ingredients, all the health and safety aspects.
“Find somebody who wants to teach you, not every good place wants to nourish you and make you better, some places will just take from you and you’ll work, work, work and then you leave there thinking you’ve done the same thing for two years. You need someone who will take you under their wing and help you to learn.”
Douglas also thinks that experience when someone is at the start of their career is more important than salary, saying: “The money comes later, don’t be chasing an extra two thousand pounds a year, survive on what you can and learn as much as you can, and that will help you for the future.
“There are places that pay over the average but everything comes in a packet, you don’t make anything, you don’t learn anything, reheating something, it puts a cap on your potential if that’s all you’re doing.
“By the time you know it you’re 25 and still don’t know anything and you’ve maxed out at the level that you are at, and you have to make a decision then, are you going to stay at that level or drop back down and be paid less and start learning again, and then you can choose what to do in the future once you have that knowledge.”
It’s an element of development that Grove of Narberth can offer too, as the hotel is part of The Seren Collection that includes Beach House, Oxwich, Lan Y Mor, Saundersfoot and Penmaenchaf, Dolgellau. Douglas says it is important to him that the company develop staff, saying that the other restaurants offer a chance to share staff, to develop their skills at the other sites away from Grove of Narberth.
But it’s not just the staff and the menus of fine dining in The Fernery and seasonal dishes, set lunches, Sunday roasts and afternoon teas in the Artisan Rooms Brasserie that have been developed by Douglas and the team, but building a relationship with the community extends to young people in schools too.
Douglas says: “We have been doing a competition with primary school age children in Ceredigion where they can work with their teachers and do team work around food – where it comes from, packaging, how it’s grown- giving them an understanding, and then they do a three course meal.
“For us it was about getting to an earlier age group and plant some seeds about good food, how are we going to live more sustainably, what produce is healthy and that you can cook for yourself and feed yourself and family when you’re older.
“In 2026 we want to extend it into Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire and maybe into Cardiff and Swansea in 2027.”
But what about when Douglas goes home after creating incredible dishes for other people every day, what happens in his kitchen?
He says not as much as some people might think: “It’s mainly boring pasta stuff, lentils, chilli, avocado egg topping sourdough – not fancy and rich food because sometimes something plain and nourishing is what you need. We work long hours to 1am in the morning so then you don’t fancy staying up to make yourself a full meal,” he says.
And it’s that relaxed attitude that Douglas brings to any dining table, from eating out in another restaurant to friends or family cooking for him; he’s interested but not judgemental on what is served.
He says: “It’s not about critiquing what somebody else is doing, I’m just grateful that somebody else has taken the time to do it, I enjoy the moment and have a nice time with my friends and family.”
