Of all the things being served up on Celebrity MasterChef, the last thing I expected was a dish inspired by Cardiff’s infamous Chippy Lane. But that’s exactly what Welsh opera singer Wynne Evans, of Go Compare fame, created with his Cardiff Curry, inspired by the row of late-night chip shop takeaways. Caroline Street, as it’s formally named, is a place you’d never dream of visiting in the day, but it’s a hotspot for late-night revellers, hungry after closing time, feasting on chips and continuing the decades-old debate of whether the street’s true nickname is Chippy Alley (as Wynne calls it) or Chippy Lane (the correct answer, if you ask me).
This tongue-in-cheek argument is just one of the many things I’ve come to love about Cardiff, a city which has held my heart since I moved here more than 20 years ago.
Growing up in the nearby seaside town of Barry – most famous now for BBC sitcom Gavin and Stacey but best known in the 1980s for its Butlins holiday camp and fairground – Cardiff was like the cooler, older cousin, so alluring with its shops and nightlife.
As teenagers, my friends and I would regularly make the 20-minute train journey from Barry, trying on outfits in Tammy Girl and spritzing ourselves with too much White Musk at The Body Shop. As we got older, we’d make that same train journey at night, dressed up and ready to party, envying the people who lived there and didn’t have to pay a fortune for a taxi home (only flagging one down after we’d had our obligatory Chippy Lane feast, of course).
As my nearest city, and not wanting to relocate anywhere too far from home, it was inevitable I’d settle in Cardiff after finishing university.
I lived in a flat with two girlfriends, all of us in the early days of our professional careers. I worked for a local magazine writing about the city’s arts and culture, interviewing local musicians, authors and artists by day and saying yes to all the gigs, theatre shows and new bar launches by night. Cardiff is a small city, and we’d regularly find ourselves in the same bars as the Welsh rugby team or voice-of-an-angel-turned-party-girl Charlotte Church.
This was back in the 2000s when a huge regeneration was taking place, making it an exciting time to live and work in the Welsh capital. Once the biggest exporter of coal in the world, the docks became Cardiff Bay, with its wine bars and waterside flats. A new stadium opened in time for the 1999 Rugby World Cup, hosting both Welsh rugby games and pop concerts. A number of luxury hotels popped up to welcome international World Cup visitors. The Queen came to open Wales Millennium Centre in 2004, and soon we were getting top touring West End musicals here too. The old ice rink (where we enjoyed many a Friday night ice disco as teenagers), the library and a shabby Primark (before the company discovered fashion), were bulldozed in 2006 to make way for a state-of-the-art shopping centre, bringing to Wales brands, shops and restaurants we’d never had here before. The TV and film industry was beginning to grow, with Doctor Who and Casualty being made and filmed locally (these days we can add His Dark Materials and A Discovery of Witches to the list).
Suddenly more people than ever before were visiting Cardiff. The travel press declared it a true European capital, its compact size making it easy to explore on foot, and less expensive than the likes of Edinburgh, London and Dublin.
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People often talk about not appreciating all their hometown has to offer, but I find the opposite to be true here in Cardiff. We love having a castle in the city centre – part Norman, part brooding Gothic, and free for residents to visit. We make the most of our free museums – St Fagans National Museum of History, an open-air living history attraction filled with historical buildings from across Wales, and National Museum Cardiff, which houses one of Europe’s best collections of impressionist art, not to mention the dinosaurs. It’s a rite of passage for every child in Cardiff to have a photo with the ageing woolly mammoths. Experiencing pop concerts, iconic sporting moments, and theatre shows just minutes from home, rather than having to travel hours away, will never get old.
Cardiff has many of the chain shops and restaurants you’d find in any city, but we also have quirky independent boutiques in the picturesque Victorian arcades, local street food vendors at Cardiff Market and pop-up events around the city, and a growing number of Michelin-starred independent restaurants.
And when you need a breather from it all, there are parks and open spaces aplenty. Bute Park in the city centre, Roath Park with its famous lake and lighthouse two miles from the centre, and the ancient woodlands of The Wenallt and Fforest Fawr (where you’ll spot the fairytale-style turrets of Castell Coch, meaning Red Castle, emerging through the trees) on the outskirts. It’s 40 minutes in one direction to the rugged coastline and sandy beaches of the Vale of Glamorgan or 40 minutes in the other direction to the dramatic mountains of the Bannau Brycheinog (Brecon Beacons).
For a capital city, it’s one of the friendliest places you could live or visit. People smile and strike up a conversation. “Cheers, Drive” when alighting a bus is such a popular refrain here that there’s been a campaign to name a street near the currently-under-construction bus station exactly this. We Welsh are a friendly bunch at the best of times, but perhaps this is also partly because Cardiff is where many people move for study or job opportunities and never leave. They don’t have family or childhood friends here, so they create their own networks. Most of the people I’m friends with now I’ve met in the last 10 to 15 years.
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I’m never surprised when Cardiff is named in polls of the top UK cities to live in – it’s perfect, whatever your age. It was lively, cultured and cosmopolitan in my 20s and early 30s. And now I’m a mum of three, living in the suburbs, the schools are good, the neighbours are friendly… and you’re more likely to find me writing about family days out than swanky cocktail bars.
Of course, Cardiff’s not perfect. There’s crime, homelessness, and areas of deprivation, as in any UK city. Other parts of Wales feel that Cardiff gets all the investment to their detriment. Rising house prices are forcing out first-time buyers. I worry whether my own children will be able to make a life here, should they wish to stay.
Whether they live here when they’re older or not, in the meantime, I’ll continue to show them the best of what Cardiff has to offer. Well, except for late-night Chippy Lane. But hopefully, that’s a delight they’ll discover themselves when they’re old enough.
Cardiff was voted the best city in the UK – and the friendliest city in the UK – in the 2023 Readers' Choice Awards. Cathryn Scott is a freelance journalist living and working in Cardiff, and author of Cardiff Mummy Says, a website helping families explore the city.
