Swansea's favourite Chinese Gigi Gao has been featured in Jay Rayner's new book
One of Swansea’s most distinctive restaurants has found itself in the spotlight and between the covers of acclaimed food critic Jay Rayner’s new book.
There are restaurants you visit for dinner. And then there are restaurants that serve up something rather more memorable, a feast, a spectacle and a story you’ll still be telling long after the last plate has been cleared.
For Jay Rayner, Gigi Gao’s Favourite Authentic Chinese in Swansea Marina clearly belongs in the second camp.
The multi-award-winning restaurant has landed a starring role in Rayner’s newly published Nights Out In The Kitchen, released by Penguin on 3 September 2026. Gigi Gao’s gets an impressive three-and-a-half pages, along with two striking full-page colour images of owner Gigi Gao herself, plus a page for her menu.
It is quite an appearance, although anyone familiar with the restaurant might argue that Gigi Gao’s has never exactly been designed to fade quietly into the background.
A Feast for the SENSES
We won’t spoil it for anyone, but Rayner’s account is about considerably more than what arrived on the plate.
He captures the colour, personality and unmistakable character of a restaurant that has become one of Swansea’s most distinctive dining destinations, a place where authenticity comes with a generous helping of theatre.
There is also the rather unlikely tale of how a restaurant on Swansea Marina caught the attention of one of Britain’s best-known food critics and went on to find itself in the national spotlight.
Rayner’s relationship with Gigi Gao’s began in June 2022, when he visited Swansea. That encounter subsequently inspired two pieces in The Observer’s Sunday supplement, published in July 2022 and January 2023. Now the story has another chapter and this one comes between hard covers.
“Jay’s latest book is a marvellous accolade,” a spokesperson for Gigi Gao’s said. “His writing captures the personality, the character and the authenticity of our food. It’s an honour to see Swansea’s Chinese cuisine again represented at national level.”
A Restaurant That Refuses to Blend In
Anyone who has walked through the doors of Gigi Gao’s will know that understatement has never really been on the menu. This is a restaurant with personality.
Its surroundings, atmosphere and food combine to create something deliberately far removed from the familiar British idea of a Chinese restaurant. Authenticity is at its heart, but so are colour, character and a sense of occasion.
The result is the sort of place where dinner feels like a night out and where the surroundings can be almost as much of a talking point as the food.
Because ultimately, it is what arrives at the table that keeps people coming back.
Worth Travelling For
That individuality has brought with it an increasingly impressive collection of accolades. Gigi Gao’s has been named Best Oriental Restaurant in Wales three times in five years, as well as winning Best Asian Restaurant in Wales in the Chinese category.
Then came television, the restaurant appeared on the BBC’s Chris Cooks Cymru.
But perhaps the most delicious measure of its success isn’t hanging on a wall or sitting in a trophy cabinet.
It is the number of people wanting to travel to Swansea simply to eat there. National exposure has increasingly turned curious readers and viewers into real-life diners, bringing visitors to the city to discover Gigi Gao’s for themselves and helping the restaurant carve out a place in Swansea’s growing food-tourism story.
Nights Out In The Kitchen by Jay Rayner is out now. Copies available from Gigi Gao’s.
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