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SIDE DISHES NEWS TO NIBBLE ON
LOOK OUT for various dining events during August under the Gourmet Glasgow banner.
Around 70 restaurants will be offering Dine Around deals right through the month with two or three courses for £15.95 per head including a dram of Glenfiddich whisky. For bookings go to 5pm.co.uk.
SUNDAY 7 AUGUST sees a restaurant and pub-crawl celebrating vintage bikes,
Harris Tweed, facial hair and Scottish food and drink hit the streets of Glasgow. Tweed Rides have been seen in London, New York, LA etc, but this is the first to specify cloth from the Outer Isles. harristweedride. wordpress.com AS EVER there’s a flurry of new openings around Edinburgh as the Festival dawns, keeping the capital scene as eclectic as ever. In Bruntsfield, Ristorante Ferrari is a smart Italian venture, Malaysian favourite Kampong Ah Lee has opened a second branch at 97-101 Fountainbridge, while Tanjore at 6-8 Clerk Street specialises in Southern Indian cooking.
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D ining out in with a view of the Clyde is so rare that the Riverside Museum’s café is an attraction in itself – let alone for the spectacular building housing the expanded collection of the old Museum of Transport. Zaha Hadid’s realised design highlights the continuing regeneration of the area, with its strikingly jagged roof reminiscent of a city skyline, or a wave, or even an electrocardiogram of Glasgow’s revitalised pulse. Inside, the exhibits are undoubtedly impressive, from the car wall and giant locomotive to the hanging velodrome.
A stunning setting in a striking building Cramped dining area with uninspiring food
lunchtime mains feature haggis, burger, haddock and pies, plus salads, sandwiches and cakes. A roasted vegetable bruschetta starter with pesto dressing offers a reason for optimism, but the burger is a good, meaty patty stifled by a soulless bap and joyless chips. Sandwiches are freshly prepared on various breads – fine up to a point but lacklustre in the delivery.
Bumpy ride The quality of food at the café in Glasgow’s new Riverside Museum is as up-and-down as its roof, Jay Thundercliffe discovers
Hopes that the café can continue this ambition and creativity are quickly dashed – despite being run by Encore, the council’s caterers who have made a decent fist of the café at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. While the café’s ceiling soars, with huge windows framing the Tall Ship Glenlee, the food is distinctly down to earth – rather bucking the recent improvement in catering at a number of our galleries, museums and visitor attractions.
The space seems too small – which may be in part due to its early popularity, yet projections average 1800 people daily, so the 100 or so capacity seems likely to strain most weekends and holidays. It’s cramped, too, for the inevitable buggies. Wipe-clean tables and a fast turnaround (in theory anyway) impart a canteen vibe, and the food does little to elevate matters. Morning breakfast options are nothing fancy: toast, omelette, bacon bap, while
Interestingly, there’s another café here. Le Rendezvous features within one of three re-created streets spanning 1895-1980, and is an enthralling relocation of Giovanni Togneri’s Duke Street ice- cream parlour complete with the actual wooden counter and booths used in the café from 1929 to 1985. It’s a shame Rendezvous isn’t open for business. A gelato from a family-run neighbourhood favourite would have been an antidote to the rather cold, calculated world of mass catering.
RIVERSIDE CAFÉ
Riverside Museum, 100 Pointhouse Place,
Glasgow, G3 8RS, 0141 287 2720, encorehospitalityservices.co.uk
Food served: Mon–Thu, Sat 10am–4pm; Fri, Sun 11am–4pm. Ave. price two-course meal: £13 (lunch)
BAR CRAWLER
DRINKIES WINE BAR 39 Queen Street A wee wine bar that’s an art gallery or the other way round? A wine shop with some nice leather armchairs to enjoy a sample glass? Or an intimate music venue (live jazz every Wednesday) selling craft beers? Take your pick, don’t invite the whole office (it gets busy with a dozen folk inside) and embrace the fact that in New Town Edinburgh, civilised drinkies is normal behaviour.
4–11 Aug 2011THE LIST 99