Food&Drink News & reviews
SIDE DISHES NEWS TO NIBBLE ON
ALLAN MAWN, the man behind Dumbarton Road hits Pintxo and Velvet Elvis, has converted a third neighbouring unit into his reinvention of the Criterion, a classic West End café. Displaying a dedication to the nostalgic touches, the booths and marble soda fountain were salvaged from a skip outside the Moscardini Brothers’ café in Falkirk.
GOOD REPORTS reaching us of a lovely wee Thai place right opposite
Newhaven Harbour in Edinburgh called Port of Siam. With under 30 covers it’s an intimate space, while the menu is dominated by seafood including chargrilled scallops with Penang curry. It’s at 3 Pier Place; bookings on 0131 467 8628.
TICKETS ARE now on sale online for the BBC Good Food Show Scotland, which comes to the SECC in Glasgow from Friday 22 to Sunday 24 October. There’s a big MasterChef tie-in this year, with stars from the show doing demos and a pop-up restaurant featuring dishes inspired by the programme. glasgow.bbcgood foodshow.com
Y ou might expect the multi- million pound re-birth of the G1 Group’s flagship Merchant City property to cause such a stir that door staff would be busy all night checking the queue outside. But, other than on a Friday or Saturday night, getting into the vast Corinthian Club – as it is now known with its new gaming is straightforward.
licence –
BAR CRAWLER
DIVINO ENOTECA 5 Merchant Street, Edinburgh A wine cellar with delusions of grandeur, or one of the smartest new places to drink in the city? Our money’s on the latter, because it’s hard to say no when almost 60 wines are offered by the glass (state-of- the-art Enomatic machines keep the bottles fresh), the locally-sourced antipasti is excellent and there’s a secret smokers’ courtyard out the back. (David Pollock)
36 THE LIST 23 Sep–7 Oct 2010
Certainly the capacity of the venue is prodigious. In various recent G1 openings the trend for multi-themed venues has become apparent, and with five floors and countless rooms to play with, the interior designers have gone to town. There are cocktail bars with a bourbon theme, a pink and sparkly theme and a Holywood jazz theme, private rooms with a hunting lodge theme and a library theme, a nightclub and a gaming room. The two dining options are the monastery-themed Mash and Press Room in the basement and the main Tellers Bar and Brasserie on the ground floor.
All that glitters Corinthian, an icon of the Merchant City’s transformation into a convivial hub, has just emerged from a lavish makeover. Andrea Pearson donned her frock
+ –
Makeover makes the most of the central banking hall Profusion of bling detracts from architectural wow
Much of the menu is the same both upstairs and down so it makes sense to opt for the more attractive setting of the Tellers Bar. The ornate, glass-domed Victorian room once housed the banking hall of the Glasgow and Ship Bank – now just a few paragraphs in the Lloyds/HBOS archives. Unlike the decor, the menu offers few extremes of styling and sticks for the most part to familiar upmarket pub staples such as smoked salmon, steaks, burgers,
veggie pasta, garlic bread and sticky toffee pudding. It is enjoyable food in memorable surroundings and staff are pleasant and happy to help. The main components of each dish are well executed but details go missing, from rather toothless horseradish and rocket with a tender beef carpaccio to the scant lime and butter parsley sauce accompanying a nicely crispy seared halibut. There is, instead, an emphasis on novel receptacles. Crème brûlée comes in a tiny brass skillet on a slate and a main course of cod and chips is served in a small deep-frying basket, not the easiest bit of tableware to eat from. Style getting the upper hand? Perish the thought.
THE CORINTHIAN CLUB www.thecorinthianclub.co.uk
191 Ingram Street, Merchant City, Glasgow, 0141 552 1101
Food served Mon–Fri 8am–6am, Sat/Sun noon–6am. Ave. price two-course meal for one £10.95 (set lunch)/£18 (dinner).