DeseoGleneagles Hotel, Auchterarder (0800 704705)
The Bill
Lunch for two, £35.50, excluding drinks
SHOULD you have raspberries on the menu all year round? Or should a serious restaurant educate its patrons to enjoy the sur
prises (and freshness) of seasonal foods, while simultaneously saving on food miles? This is the moral conundrum being wrestled with by chefs at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire: perfect Blairgowrie raspberries each autumn then months of anticipation, or year-round instant gratification that just possibly jades the palate as well as racking up the CO?
Actually, Gleneagles has a reputation for taking its environmental responsibilities seriously. Peter Lederer, the managing director, sees the pristine quality of the Scottish environment as key to his brand image. Andrew Fairlie, the chef whose signature restaurant at Gleneagles has just won Scotland's only second Michelin star, has long been a pioneer of local sourcing.
But there is a fine line between preaching to customers and gently engaging with them. The obvious solution is to excite eaters into rethinking their gastronomic experience. This approach lies at the heart of Deseo, a new in-house, Mediterranean-style restaurant which opened in August. Open all day, it caters to the general public as well as hotel guests.
This bit of the hotel (situated near the leisure complex) used to contain a rather nondescript cafeteria. The aroma of chlorine and pasta did not excite me and the ambience was a bit on the municipal swimming pool café side. However, all that has been triumphantly banished.
The new restaurant is smart, minimalist and unpretentious and suits family dining – we were there at half-term and there were a prodigious number of infants scoffing pizza. However, there is a more sophisticated child-free room suitable for a dinner date or business lunch, plus a sit-round fish bar.
Deseo calls itself a "Mediterranean Food Market". The ingredients are laid out before you (literally) like the food hall of Harvey Nicks or Harrods. The menu is impressive: tapas, antipasto, charcuterie, fish, shellfish, grills, pizza and pasta in profusion.
The quantity and quality of the ingredients is mouth-watering. You're free to order whatever you like, however you like it, and watch it being prepared. This style of cooking is more an assembly job than complex preparation but it is fun and unpretentious. And it encourages one to experiment.
We started with a fritto misto of assorted deep-fried fish (£6). I actually like my plate piled high with tiny, salty shrimps, evoking memories of Greek islands and feeding stray cats under the table. My friend, who is not so keen on shrimp, wanted a bit more variety. The answer, of course, is to tell the chef exactly what you desire.
The display at the charcuterie counter is to die for, especially the acorn-fed Joselito Gran Reserva, possibly the most delicious ham in the world. I plumped for a dish of Spanish meats: Salchichon, Ceina and Lomo (£8.50). The meat was correctly succulent and paper-thin.
The open kitchen relies on two hi-tech grills imported from Spain that sear food at up to 500 degrees centigrade. They are perfect for doing steak as they cook ultra-quickly. The results for shellfish were more problematic.
We ordered the gambas prawns (£6) done in the special grill. Because the fish chef thought the special oven was too fierce for prawns, he popped them on a dish before putting them in the heat, afraid that otherwise the high temperature would incinerate the wood skewer that held them together. Unfortunately, they came out more baked than grilled and a tad overdone. So we persuaded him to experiment for us and just lay the prawns directly on the grill. They came out perfectly.
Deseo has its own separate pasta bar – again on public view – which tempted me to sample some penne with a fresh chorizo and tomato sauce (£15). Sloppy restaurants serve pasta either suitably al dente but lukewarm; or else hot and horribly squishy. Deseo not only got the balance perfect but the sauce was appropriately restrained rather than a soup that drowned the pasta.
The wine list is under the control of Chris Scullion, who used to do the honours at the Whisky Society in Edinburgh. Deseo's wines are mainly south European and Mediterranean, as befits the restaurant's cuisine. The price range is pleasantly middle-of-the-road.
The prospective drive back to Edinburgh sadly moderated our intake of wine to a glass – though, as in any decent restaurant, Chris let us sip a selection before choosing. The find was an unusual Catalan rosé, Clos Montblanc Rosat, which was delightful for a lunchtime quaff. Far too many rosés are sickly sweet and anaemic; this one was rich with fruit without being cloying.
The secret of Deseo is that, to get the best out of the eating experience, you need to know exactly what you want, then get the chef to make it to order. I can't think of another restaurant in Scotland where you will get this millionaire treatment, and for such relatively modest prices.
They are still serving raspberries year-round at Gleneagles. Rightly, you have to lead customers rather than order them about. We need choice, but educated choice and restaurants that get us to experiment. That might be a good motto for Deseo.
The full article contains 899 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
