Roy's latest update: February, 2008

Sisters' Success at the Scottish Restaurant Awards

Congratulations to West End chef Martin Shearer, who I understand was the driving force behind The Sisters Restaurant winning the Best City Restaurant of the Year Award 2008 in the inaugural Scottish Restaurant Awards in Edinburgh the other week.

Awards are good news for licensed trade venues, which otherwise generally gain press attention only via the sometimes fickle prose of professional food critics - who (with one or two honourable exceptions) tend to base their entire critique entirely on the experience of a single meal.

According to a press report by journalist colleague Julian Hearne, The Sisters' success was due in no small measure to the provenance of its ingredients - for example seafood fresh from Ullapool and venison from the Ardnamurchan peninsula - and this neatly answers the vogue for playing up the undoubted strengths of fine Scottish produce in fine Scottish cuisine.

In the same report Martin pays tribute to eponymous sisters Jacqueline, also involved in food preparation, and Pauline O'Donnell, "the friendly face of the restaurant".

Launched to recognise all that is great about the very best Scots restaurants the Scottish Restaurant Awards appear to have their centre of gravity in Edinburgh, where there are, admittedly, many fine restaurants - but it's nice to note that of the three finalists in the city category only the West End venture, ie the winner, was from outwith the capital.

Which sort of reaffirms what this column has been saying all along about the superlative quality of our best local ventures.

There are, as is only right and proper, two Sisters venues - at 1a Ashwood Gardens, Jordanhill; and at 36 Kelvingrove Street. Awards generally mean increased custom, once word gets out that a place is "hot", so I aim to visit one soon before they become too popular.

Argan no more

I was dismayed to find out by accident that a place that was shaping up to be one of my favourites, the Franco-Moroccan Argan Cafe in west side Argyle Street, is no more. Gone! It was busy last time I visited, served delightful Arab dishes and (according to a pal) "the best boeuf Bourgignon outside Paris", and seemed destined, if only to me, to be set to stay the course.

However nothing lasts forever (except Rogano, of course), and at least it has been instantly replaced by a new venture, Lamorra, whose menu is "Italian and continental". A lady at Maclay Inns tells me it is good news, and armed with this endorsement I will check it out before long.

New look at the Snaffle Bit

More or less just around the corner on west side Sauchiehall Street a venerable local bar well-known for its connections with the West End Gaelic community (and, as in the nearby Park Bar, with Gaeldom generally) has undergone a sympathetic and very smart makeover, with plenty of tasteful prints and dark wood in the lounge bar. It's in the middle of an area where there are often many tourists staying at well-respected independent local hotels (I must some day find why the Alamo Guesthouse is so called - is it because you remember it?), and hopefully this new-look old-look bar will tempt some to discover a real traditional Scottish pub.

Rio and the Jimi Hendrix Experience

A word of advice to anyone caring to dine out early doors on a Friday evening in the splendid Rio Cafe - take ear plugs. It is definitely a sign of advancing years and retreating hairline that the jolly strains of Jimi Hendrix, to name but one - at something approaching pain level - induces "fight or flight" syndrome rather than mellow relaxation in those of us who thought all that psychedelic racket was a great idea back in 1973. When we were young.

However this is a relatively minor cavilling point, and on the plus it shows the staff haven't succumbed to the heap of blithering nonsense which passes for popular music these days. Also I don't want to be regaled with Mantovani by candlelight next time - so I won't mention it again.

This venue, you'll recall, was the website's best cafe of the West End Festival 2007, and rightly so - inordinately nice food, with plenty of continental flourishes but plenty of Scottish standards too, produced from a hard-working kitchen with the minimum of fuss no matter how busy.

Farewell Helen

A couple of weeks ago I attended a superb farewell do for Helen McCarroll, long standing licensee at The Three Judges at Partick Cross - which as I never tire reminding people made it all the way to the final three of the cask ale award run by Britain's top licensed trade journal, The Publican.

Helen effectively created The Judges, in particular developing a fantastic cask ale offer which in turn has won for the pub a lengthy string of awards from CAMRA. More than that the ambience her enlightened management brought to the pub has encouraged what I'm pleased to regard as the most eclectic, in a nice way, clientele in the West End ... if you accept that Pertyck has de facto been annexed to the West End. Last time I visited Patricia Ferguson MSP was having a wee refreshment with friends - excellent taste for a politician (they usually go for flashy pretentious places that can't do beer) and I hope she tells all her friends.

Helen's replacement Angela Bradley, recently featured in the Evening Times, is clearly dedicated to maintaining exactly the same style of operation, and of course Helen now has the option of visiting as a customer as often as she likes.

Inevitably I wrote a fairly lengthy panegyric on this rather distinguished lady licensee on The Publican website, and if you want the full yarn you can find it here at http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=16&storycode=58349&c=1

Mickey Blue's

Down the hill a bit back on to Dumbarton Road and off along the road towards Whiteinch you'll find, at almost the last shop front in Thornwood, a brand new bar called Mickey Blue's, which I aim to investigate properly as soon as possible.

It is very unusual for a bar in having a complete picture window frontage, and also a great idea - particularly for women, who can then see at a glance that the place looks ok, or not. This one looks absolutely fine, with its food and drink offer prominently displayed on large billboards. It sort of reminds me of places I remember visiting in nicer parts of Amsterdam - classy corner locals in the Jordaan, full of interesting, laid-back local punters. My theory about Thornwood becoming "the new black" in Greater Partick terms appears to be less than complete blethers, and I hope we see much more of the same.

Bag a Baguette

One of the nicest things about the part of my work life which centres on PR writing is that when I see a concept I admire I can really "go for it" in prose. At the same time it means I can't possibly be objective, so I won't try to give you a dispassionate account of the arrival of fast food franchise Baguette Express literally two doors from Greggs on Byres Road (a daring move), and right next door to I (heart) Candy.

The venture is a franchise run by former taxi driver Mr Paul McGranahan and his son, also Paul, and is the latest in a chain developed by Haddington entrepreneurs Robin and Billy Stenhouse - who took a long, cool look at, er, some other baguette-led franchise ventures, and set about creating one which is faster and considerably cheaper.

I've written a lot of enthusiastic prose about various Baguette Express new openings, from Elgin to Derry (there's one in Ballymena too, but only one other in Glasgow so far, in Shawlands), but it was only last week that I finally ventured in to try out the concept for myself.

Would I be treated to swift and friendly service and offered a mouthwatering selection of keenly-priced but (more or less) healthy options at a price I can afford every day?
Or would I be unceremoniously hoist by my own literary petard?

I was initially disconcerted to find that the queue outside the door matched the adjacent queue outside Gregg's, and reconciled myself to a tedious wait. With a posse of schoolgirls. But, amazingly, the other would-be customers got served in record time and while I was still perusing the options on the giant board on one wall it was suddenly my turn.

What seemed about a minute later, and £4.40 lighter, I left carrying not one but two baked potatoes stuffed full of fresh salad and chargrilled chicken. My wife (they weren't both for me) declared the entire concept a success - and so do I.

Paninis, toasties, baguettes, potatoes, home made soup, breakfast rolls, plenty of choice, cheap prices - beautiful clean shop and extremely able and friendly staff: this is (says the PR writer) a sure fire success story in a street crammed from top to bottom with sandwich shops of many different kinds, and I predict many more will ultimately arrive in Glasgow and plenty of other towns and cities. Of course I would say that - but as I now have a reliable source of decent fast food three minutes from my front door I can only approve.

The Balti Club

While on the subject of amenable staff and good fast food I sampled the lunchtime delights of the above Indian takeaway in Woodlands Road today, to find an excellent-value chicken tikka with sauce and chips for £2.95. Again we are talking a spotless operation and a large range of shopper-friendly options (it is, of course, the heart of studentland) , backed by a full menu of "serious" curries which I'm assured are easily the equivalent of many you'd find in a full-monty Indian restaurant. I'm going back soon - for a takeaway.

The Lansdowne Project

By this I mean not the splendid Lansdowne Cafe Bar but the nearby Lansdowne Parish Church, which as you may recall from my report of about a year ago may one day be playing host to a community resource centred on a theatre with licensed cafe-bar - but with full use of the church hall retained on service days by the congregation.

The people who would put this plan into action, if it wins approval, are the Four Acres Charity Trust (FACT), who were responsible for the magnificent job of work at what is now The Cottier Theatre - where their experts have for years been painstakingly uncovering the fantastic free-hand "Aztec" design work of the great Victorian artist-designer Daniel Cottier (originally from Partick).

Cottier is the "undiscovered" (at any rate, to a modern mass audience) "Macintosh", and for my money an altogether more interesting artist - his stained glass art is awesome. Behind the organ loft in the former church (I was shown this one day about 20 years ago) is a large "sunburst" motif which could only possibly ever be seen by the organist - the sort of Cottier detail which alerts you to the fact you are dealing with somebody a bit unusual.

Unlike the Cottier, based in the one-time Dowanhill Parish Church - and unlike Colin Beattie's Oran Mor - the Lansdowne building is still very much a church (the other two buildings had been decommissioned long before conversion to licensed performance arts venues), and it is also a List A structure, meaning major material changes to the building fabric aren't technically possible.

Instead what FACT aims to do, with the Church of Scotland's blessing, is spend a fortune on absolutely vital restoration work, without which - to quote a single example - a huge stained glass window reckoned to be one of the finest, if not the finest, in the city would be in severe danger from weather corrosion.

It is not a straightforward plan, will involve a great deal of detailed discussion, but on the face of it appears to have all of the right elements needed for sympathetic consideration: most importantly, the distinctive building with its 210-ft spire, one of the thinnest for its size in Europe, would be restored to fully safe and watertight condition; and it would remain very much a church (although the congregation would have to go "outreach" during the restoration).

Much will depend upon what members of the congregation think, but given FACT's excellent record on restoration, and the tight operational conditions certain to be imposed on any cafe-bar, I think it's an exciting project which probably deserves to succeed. It would also create another much-needed West End Festival arts venue, forming the third point of a string which includes Oran Mor as centrepiece and the Cottier as first base over in Dowanhill ... what a fabulous circuit for anything from cutting-edge drama to baroque ensemble. More on this plan as it unfolds.

Beer Prices Set to Rocket - January, 2008

Happy New Year - that'll be £4 please: you can have the crisps for nothing.

It's a sombre note on which to end 2007 but, yes, according to press reports the brewers are getting us ready for the £4 pint of beers in pubs, a somewhat startling increase over the present national average of about £2.20.

Costs have rocketed spectacularly, it's said, making dramatic rises at the customer end completely unavoidable. A chap at the British Beer and Pub Association (no doubt to derisive jeers from pub customers) says this sort of increase is the very last thing the industry wants, and in fact he's exactly right. Here's why.

In our supermarkets, where the Scottish Government is trying to enforce some sort of responsibility, you can buy a can of beer for 27p. Thirty years ago newspapers were advertising cheap beer offers at 24p a can. There's inflation for you - a penny a decade.

In recent years the supermarkets have used drink as a loss leader to persuade us to buy all our shopping there, and on occasion have sold it at below cost price. Some brands are sold so cheaply the publicans shop there instead of the wholesaler or cash and carry. While I wouldn't grudge people a bargain, this has reduced the price of alcohol to farcical levels, fuelling today's ugly binge-drinking phenomenon and prompting a plethora of leading doctors, together with alcohol watchdog groups and politicians, to call for price rises.

At the same time traditional pubs are clearly suffering from the effects of last year's smoking ban, which has made not one iota of difference to the number of people smoking (Shettleston, with 52% smokers, is still the heaviest-smoking area), and are fighting to retain regular custom among a core clientele which is perfectly well aware that it is paying an exorbitant premium for the small pleasure of being able to enjoy a pint in comfort in a local bar.

If beer does shoot up to £4 a pint, or anything like it, pubs will assuredly shut, while still more people will rely on cheapie offers from the supermart for their beer. The people who run the Tesco's and Asda's talk a good game about social responsibility, but in fact they couldn't care less about Scotland's appalling health stats (or anybody else's). Like all unfettered capitalists they care only for the bottom line.

My New Year message to the Scottish Government, and particularly Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, is this:

well done for the strong lead you have shown so far, after years of complete inactivity from your predecessors (who were in thrall to the supermarkets) - now prepare to take draconian, salutary action to bring these people into line.

I want to see a complete freeze on all new off-sales licences, minimum prices, all alcohol stored in one area (I know they're working on this one already), and, via licensing boards, loss of licence for any supermarket or other trader found to be selling to under-18's. Fail to do this and we'll see the consequences - the £4 pint won't stop people drinking, simply drive them into the supermarkets where they can buy alcohol for next to nothing. I don't want to live in a Scotland which can offer only licensed restaurants and bars ordinary people cannot afford - nor one in which young adult customers are drunk before venturing out from carryouts they bought for washers in the supermarket. The time for manoeuvring is over - in 2008 it has to be war.

The Halt - Iconic West End Bar

Only a few weeks ago I was moaning about the demise of The Halt in Woodlands Road, which had lain shut for four months. Then, you'll recall, it reopened under a new leaseholder in time to show the big Scotland v Italy match, and it has been merrily trading away ever since.

I finally paid the place a visit last week and was delighted to see the new-look bar looking absolutely fantastic, all artily Christmassy in a way only a real West End pub could possibly manage, and with the lighting set at "atmospheric". There was some sort of young folks' funky music playing, but even that was a blessed relief from the compulsory schmalz playing everywhere else, and the staff were cheerful and helpful.

When I sat down in a corner with my pint of Deuchar's to read the paper a very large and impassive dog came and sat right beside me - I like dog-friendly places - and the pair of us whiled away a half hour or so surveying the bar and the other customers.

The old serving hatch connecting the snug to the magnificent horseshoe bar is gone, replaced with an open counter which gives much better access - a big improvement.

The adjoining lounge is fully geared to be a live music venue, and it's clear from many little operational clues that the place has a lively and committed management at the helm; I'd guess someone who knows and understands the area.

So from being shut, doomed, possibly never to reopen, The Halt is now suddenly and dramatically pitched straight back to the future, as an even better version of what is was before. There have been several interesting cafe and restaurant openings in 2007, but for me the renaissance of The Halt is the year's undoubted West End licensed trade highlight. Bloody well done to those concerned.

Where to Dine?

Over previous weeks we've regaled you with plenty of festive menus from some of the West End's finest restaurants - places like The Ubiquitous Chip, Stravaigin and Hotel du Vin - but apart from all the excitement on the 25th, is there a particular restaurant (people keep asking me) where you can truly combine seasonal conviviality with terrific food, nice surroundings, reasonable prices?

Cue a recitation of my established favourites, and one or two places I still don't know well enough: for Italian it has to be La Parmigiana, as only a restaurant of this vintage and repute can truly to justice to a grand occasion, West End style, if you're dining Italian.

If you visit Stravaigin in Ruthven Lane you'll see that the daily specials menu now regularly features Indonesian dishes, extrapolated from the rijstaffel selection which has been such a hit on the second Tuesday of every month. This has been one of the most exciting minor innovations of 2007, and it's clearly going to continue on into next year. The next rijstaffel Tuesday is January 8, which I can't make, but if you haven't tried it already I'd heartily recommend a visit as a surefire way of escaping the January blues. I have to hastily add that this is just one reason for visiting the restaurant, which continues to offer a compelling counterpoint to its venerable stablemate, The Ubiquitous Chip in Ashton Lane.

I've mentioned Pinxto in Thornwood once or twice as being one of the most interesting new venues of 2007, and I'd make it a must-see on any festive dining itinerary, but with the now standard caution that you should book in advance (and particularly at this time of year): Hispanic cuisine is endlessly versatile, and lends itself as easily to the hearty and filling as to the vegetarian and super-health conscious, and its fine wines and ciders are well worth exploring in their own right.

Another favourite of mine is Argan Cafe at 1166-1170 Argyle Street, which offers fantastic value with a (so far) unbeatable combination of French and Moroccan dishes. If you like North African food a tagine dish is a must-have, but in fact the culinary range is very wide, for such a relatively modest-sized menu, and to me the whole point of the place is that you can enjoy the contrasts and complementary flavours of disparate but related traditions - the magnificent legacy of the Mediterranean. Like Pinxto this restaurant is regularly very busy, thanks to a solid local clientele, and I'd advise booking if you're contemplating dinner there.

Alla Turca was one of the great successes of 2007 - I've said so more than once - and according to a lady colleague of mine who went, on my recommendation, both the service and the cuisine are excellent even (or maybe especially) at this time of year. In Pitt Street, just off Sauchiehall Street, it has its own characteristically lively plan for Hogmanay, and for more details check out www.allaturca.co.uk

One of my long-term Mediterranean cuisine favourites, meanwhile, is Konaki Taverna in west end Sauchiehall Street opposite what used to be the Kelvin Park Lorne Hotel. The Greeks "do" Christmas in a big way, and if you like the party vibe you could do worse that book a table for one of the Greek dancing nights - or try a lunch date early week for a more tranquil appreciation of the cuisine.

For Indian cuisine I'd recommend four or five possibles, depending on how large the party and how big the budget. These include any of the Wee Curry Shops (Buccleuch St, Ashton Lane, Byres Road), Mr India's West End Balti and Dosa House (which served me a characteristically wonderful takeaway the other week), Balbir's in Church Street, or any of the Mother India outlets. Then at Kelvinbridge, of course, there's the legendary Shish Mahal. With this sort of choice there's simply no need to go trekking into town in search of good Indian food, although if you do I can guarantee fabulous cuisine at Charcoals at 50 West Regent Street (near the bottom).

However you are by no means confined to places trading only as restaurants if you want something a bit special; Oran Mor has an elaborate and enticing array of cuisine (and probably the West End's most elaborate food and drink programme, not to mention the entertainment), while in Ashton Lane the clear winners are The Ubiquitous Chip (with its cluster of ancillary ventures, The Pub and The Wee Pub); and Bar Brel - whose core offer, based on hearty Belgian dishes, is ideal for this time of year. At Kelvinbridge the Lansdowne Cafe Bar is also worth a special mention.

Very much more on all of these places and many others in 2008 - meanwhile, Happy New Year!