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MOO CAFETERIA 9 Brandon Terrace, Canonmills, 0131 557 3226, moocafeteria.co.uk, £9 (lunch) With its slightly quirky retro styling and youthful approach, Moo (pictured above) might be trying a post-modern take on the greasy spoon and milk bar, but at the same time it is trying to keep its feet on the ground and avoid café-culture pretentiousness with a food offer including basic breakfasts, pies made inhouse and homebaked cakes alongside Tunnocks tea cakes and a fridge of fizzy drinks.
Glasgow MEDITERRANEO
159 Ingram Street, Merchant City, 0141 552 0460, mediterraneo ristoranteglasgow.com, £11 (bar) / £18 (restaurant) Mario Romano’s umpteenth venture in the city, Mediterraneo is proving immediately popular with a wide range of diners from shoppers to ladies who lunch to families. Serving simple, assured Italian cooking from its centre-piece kitchen with attention to detail and quality ingredients, this is a large, lively and convivial restaurant with a champagne bar on the side and an outdoor terrace coming shortly.
SAPPORO TEPPANYAKI 2–6 Ingram Street, Merchant City, 0141 553 4060, sapporo.co.uk, £9 (set lunch) / £23 (dinner)
12 THE LIST 19 Nov–3 Dec 2009
It’s a big venue to fill, but come the weekends the huge teppanyaki tables seating up to 24 people around the ‘cooking pits’ fill up and the flamboyant theatre comes into its own. An extensive menu offers a range of sushi, salads, hot appetisers, tempura, noodles and of course teppanyaki. Deals range from a £9 express lunch to a £40 emperor banquet.
YO!SUSHI House of Fraser, 45 Buchanan Street, City Centre, 0141 413 2231, yosushi.com, £12 (lunch/dinner) International chain Yo!Sushi is creeping back into Scotland, opening last year in Silverburn Shopping Centre and now within House of Fraser at the foot of Buchanan Street. The conveyor belts and colour- coded plates define the experience, but fine, fresh sushi along with reliable alternatives such as yakitori, teriyaki and curries make it a pretty satisfying dining stop at any time of day.
THE DEN AT DINING IN WITH MOTHER INDIA 1347 Argyle Street, West End, 0141 334 3815, motherindiaglasgow.co.uk, £8 (lunch) / £14 (dinner) Pick up takeaway meals, curries to re-heat at home, ingredients for your own cooking, or stop in to eat onsite in The Den. This has just 24 covers and is BYOB, the single-sheet menu offering simple dishes such as kedgeree, daal with roti or tava chicken, all at keen prices and in manageable portions, with Mother India’s trademark freshness and honest cooking to the fore.
SIDE DISHES Does size matter?
■ It’s near the top of the standard facts and figures we information-gatherers routinely ask of restaurants: after the name, address and phone number drill we find out how many diners they can serve. The answer immediately sends signals. Under 35 covers is small, specialist, a hidden secret – and marginal if not fairly full on a regular basis. Thirty-five to 70 is fairly normal; over 70 is getting large, while over 100 qualifies for the league of big beasts. Fill the place and the coffers fill up quickly, but mind the big overheads, staff turnover and serious wastage if no-one shows. The questions about quality also mount: is your food coming out of a factory production line? Does anyone care about individuals or is it all just numbers? In recent weeks the city centre of
Glasgow has seen the opening of Mario Romano’s Mediterraneo on Ingram Street (170 covers), Charan Gill’s Slumdog (170), Sapporo Teppanyaki (190), Urban Pind on Candleriggs (150) and, as we went to press, the restaurant in the new Blythswood Square hotel (120). All, essentially, are brand new restaurant premises – in other words, they aren’t taking over existing eating spots. They add considerably to the city’s dining capacity – and to competition with what’s already there. It’s hard to imagine any current Glasgow restaurateurs keeping the city’s licensing board on their Christmas card lists. Needless to say, they all got their doors open in time for the Christmas party season, when big restaurants can mean vibe, vitality and action. By January the same places might have tumbleweed blowing through them.
■ For all the new openings we see, it’s still important that there are innovators out there, people prepared to take a risk not just with a restaurant but a concept. Cookie, soon to open on Nithsdale Road in Pollokshields will, according to owners Domenico del Priore and Melanie McCallum (pictured), operate as ‘an eatery, deli and shop, a cooking club, bar, off license and a food and wine importer, as well as a gallery promoting design and art.’ Perhaps this is the first community, rather than neighbourhood, restaurant? ‘Cookie is where the barriers between food production, distribution, preparation and consumption come tumbling down,’ they add. Cookie is due to open by the end of the month. www.cookiescotland.com