Wow, thanks for that-most interesting. I remember The Big Windsor as being a rather dodgy club in the late 80's, so fascinating to hear another side to it. Yes, "down the docks" we never referred to it as Tiger Bay was an incongruous setting for a genuine French restaurant of note.
Diners entered the backroom dining room by walking through the saloon bar of a hard-drinking dockland's pub, one that was alive with the banter of merchant sailors and their lady companions.
I recall the blue, acrid haze of tobacco smoke as our family cut their way through to the brightly lit room where I cut my teeth on the outstanding French cuisine of this venerable eatery, something that had a lifelong impact on me in my career as a restaurant critic in the UK, France and New York.
As a young lad in Cardiff in the early 's, an evening at the Windsor was a gastronomic revelation of almost biblical proportions. My parents had known it in its post-war heydays and considered it one of the best French restaurants outside of France.
I vividly recall the dining room, its red-gingham covered tables framing the two sides of the oblong-shaped room. Yes, the Windsor was that good. What memories I have of a very great French outpost down the docks in Cardiff! Thanks so much for sharing your memories - it sounds like The Big Windsor was a really special restaurant. I wish I had the chance to eat there.
