The steakhouse fell just short of surviving 18 months in the Welsh capital
Mugshot in Cardiff(Image: Google)
A highly-rated steakhouse in Cardiff city centre has suddenly shut. Mugshot, on Wharton Street, is listed on Google as permanently closed and references to the Cardiff branch have been removed from the business’ website.
Mugshot has one other branch, in Bristol, which according to the website remains open. The week before Easter, equipment was seen being removed from the Cardiff restaurant, though an official statement on the closure is yet to be made.
The decision may come as a surprise to some in Cardiff’s food scene given that influencers were invited to the restaurant in late March, and posted glowing reviews on Instagram just days before its closure.
Mugshot’s original location, at St Nicholas Street in central Bristol, opened in 2018. Led by Birmingham-born electrician Adam Bryan and his partner Zowie Yip, it launched in Cardiff in November 2024 at the former site of Barocco bar.
The Cardiff restaurant, which had a 1920s-inspired interior, earned an average rating of 4.6 stars after 275 Google reviews. Diners were served steak on hot stone plates so they could cook the meat to their own taste.
At the time of its opening Mr Bryan, 47, said the Cardiff branch would become the brand’s “flagship” restaurant and praised the Welsh capital as somewhere “there is a lot going on”.
Shortly after the launch, our reviewer praised its offering of a “high-quality” sirloin, chips, garnish, two butters and a sauce for £30 as “not too bad for a steak dinner and easily one of the cheaper steak options in Cardiff”.
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