Owen Morgan
Owen is Chef, Food and Beverage Director of the award-winning 44 Group of tapas restaurants, bars and a hotel.
He heads up the kitchen teams, leading all cooking and food direction and creating all menus. He also creates the wine, sherry and drinks lists. He is also regularly cooking up feasts at food festivals and leading produce talks and demonstrations as well as drinks tastings and workshops.
44 Group is a restaurant group in South Wales and the Southwest that has built up a following far beyond its locale, cementing its reputation as one of the UK’s leading exponents of modern Spanish food and drink.
They are known for their up to date takes on traditional Spain, fuelled from a life of travelling the country. All dishes are paired with wines and sherries that Owen is passionate about sourcing.
The group consists of Bar 44 venues focusing on tapas and sherry, and the Northern Spanish restaurant Asador 44 brings a modern take on traditional cookery over fire along with a superb wine list. The group have added two more brands to the 44 banner. Parador 44, a Spanish inspired small boutique hotel in the heart of Cardiff, and the UK’s first of its kind. It has also launched Mercado 44, an extension of the lockdown Covid food and drink shop, taking it nationwide and opening it’s first bricks and mortar site.
Owen was the Winner of the UK Restaurant Personality of the Year at the annual Imbibe Awards and has been ‘invested’ into the Gran Orden Caballeros del Vino; an honour only bestowed on 80 people over the last 36 years, for his dedication to championing Spanish wines in the UK. Other accolades include;
Bar 44 – the Best 20 New Restaurants in the UK by The Sunday Times
Good Food Guide Readers’ Restaurant of the Year for Wales
Olive Magazine’s top five places to eat tapas in the UK
Bar 44 Cardiff, South Wales restaurant of the year
Bar 44 Best Spanish Wine List in the UK twice by Harper’s Magazine
Tom Parker-Bowles (Daily Mail) named Asador 44 as his restaurant of the year, 2020
Judging at the annual Sommelier Wine Awards
Included as one of the top 50 influencers in the UK restaurant and bar trade and sat on the judging panel for the inaugural World Sherry Awards.
Certified international Sherry Educator.
Owen was chosen to speak on stage at the International Copa Jerez forum in 2019, being flown out alongside one of the worlds most celebrated chefs, Josep Roca
Owen and brother Tom have recently published their first book ‘Tapas y Copas’ which was hailed by the Mail on Sunday as being in their top 12 books of the year.