Photograph: Ian MacNicol
YOU can't miss Guy Cowan. Short, balding and
stocky, like a Glaswegian Oddjob, he patrols his eponymous restaurant each night, meeting and greeting, asking each table's verdict on his food. His visit is brief, peremptory almost, but that's the way it should be. As much as anything else, he just wants you to know he's there, that he cares.
It's no surprise that he's out front each evening, taking the temperature. After all, he only moved from his cosy, alcoved North Street basement into the more rarefied atmosphere of the Merchant City in November, and it's early days yet. The prices have gone up, and there's a lot more competition here. He doesn't yet know whether his regulars have followed him across town. No wonder he's on the prowl.
If the former film-set caterer was looking for a bigger stage on which to perform, he has found it here. Occupying the site that was once Arisaig and Oblomov, he has stripped the whole place back. The tongue-and-groove walls have thrown off the oppressive dark tones of their previous incarnations and are now painted in pale colours. The whole place is light and airy, from the elongated bar that occupies one half of the long thin room, to the dining area at the rear.
The feeling of space is accentuated by the high ceilings, the outsized chandelier and the huge Parisian-style gilt-framed mirror that covers virtually the whole of the far end of the room. Row after row of candles add yet more atmosphere to a space that already has a determinedly fin-de-siècle ambience. White starched tablecloths complete a picture that would be at home in any smart Left Bank brasserie. The final touch is an eclectic mix of artwork that varies from garish Warhol-esque strawberry prints to an eccentric collection of bowls.
Guy's would be almost perfect were it not for the music. This, I must add, is a question of personal taste; but no matter how talented they are, I have little appetite for easy-listening crooners going through their paces when I'm eating.
Yet Guy's drew us in so completely that we soon forgot the music and got down to casting our eyes over one of the most extensive and diverse menus I've ever seen. Longer than my credit-card bill after Christmas, it juxtaposed some clunking choices: mince and tatties on one line, tuna and scallop sashimi on the next, veal and porcini pie on the one after that. By the time a hefty specials list was added in, there were more than 40 starters and main courses on offer. Fortunately, I liked the look of almost every one of them.
I eventually plumped for the steak tartare, a dish you rarely see on Scottish menus these days, while Norman chose the burrata, a wedge of soft mozzarella wrapped in parma ham with slices of apples, sunblushed tomatoes and truffle oil.
I'd chosen well. The hefty helping of finely ground raw beef meshed beautifully with the onion, spices and egg yolk, while the accompanying thin chips would probably have been the best I've ever tasted had they not been barely lukewarm.
Norman, though, wasn't so happy. His burrata was too heavy on apples, too light on flavour, with too few sunblushed tomatoes to enliven the bland mozzarella.
His main course more than made up for the disappointment, though. The chunky halibut fillet was superbly cooked, moist and succulent all the way through, and was smothered in a gloriously buttery and ever-so-faintly piquant Hollandaise sauce.
I plumped for fish too, choosing the risotto with monkfish and scallops. It was stunning: three large scallops on top of the risotto, six huge chunks of monkfish sheltering under the rice, all of it perfectly cooked. It was just the right side of stodgy, a dish bursting with subtle undercurrents of flavour.
We wound up with a pudding menu that was just short of heavenly. For anyone with a sweet tooth, the dozen options listed would make the journey worth it on their own. Actually, the only sour note of the evening came when I tried blagging a spoonful of the bread-and-butter pudding (made with panettone, brioche and amarena cherries) to accompany my superb helping of Eton mess and was humourlessly rebuffed by an unenthusiastic young waitress who spent the evening looking as if she couldn't wait to catch up on her beauty sleep. Still, you can't have everything.
Norman rounded off his meal with a bowl of Guy's famous fruit crumble, an intoxicating ensemble of apple, mango, pineapple, cranberries, blueberries, apricots and vanilla surrounded by the sort of custard you just know you'll never manage to recreate at home no matter how hard you try.
Guy may have spent his whole career pandering to A-list film folk, but now it's his turn to hog the limelight. He has proved to be a star turn.
VITAL STATISTICSGuy's Restaurant and Bar24 Candleriggs, Merchant City, Glasgow (0141 552 1114;
www.guysrestaurant.co.uk)
Out of pocket Starters £3.50–£12.50;
mains £9.50–£25.50 (side orders £1.95–£5.25);
puddings £4.50– £6.50 (cheeseboard £8.95)
Rating 7.5/10
The full article contains 893 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
