My dismay over Scotland's failure to attract any more Michelin stars this year can be countered by an emerging bright light:
the number of Bib Gourmand restaurants listed in the current Michelin Guide is fast catching up with the total of starred ones (seven compared with 15).
Scotland seems to be excelling in the mid-priced menu market. Bibs are awarded for good food at moderate prices, and though they don't yet have gongs, the popularity of Martin Wishart's brasserie The Honours and Tom Kitchin's The Scran & Scallie, both in Edinburgh, are indicators that mid-market fine-dining, to coin a phrase, is an expanding market. Wishart is looking to open a second The Honours in Glasgow or Aberdeen, wherever the right venue becomes available. The three-star chef Albert Roux's expanding empire of Chez Roux restaurants in Scotland also offers only mid-priced menus.
Don't be fooled into thinking the pub or gastro-pub is the only place to go for reasonably priced food. I wouldn't be surprised if pub food prices started to soar as proprietors and chefs try to cash in on the success of Tom Kerridge's hugely popular TV series, Proper Pub Food (drawing over two million viewers a week). The chef's easygoing manner and mouthwatering recipes provide beguiling inspiration for the home cook (his new cookbook was one of only five books to register sales of more than £100,000 in a week).
It's when you look at the prices on the menu of his gastro-pub, The Hand & Flowers in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, that reality sinks in. Although there is a reasonably priced set lunch menu for £19.50, starters are £15 for a blowtorched Scottish scallop with beef and mead bouillon and summer truffle; a demi "en croute" of whole baby truffle with foie gras and port starter will set you back £18.50. Mains stretch to around £30; puddings are £9.50, and sides £4.50 a pop. In total dinner is upwards of £65 a head, without wine. The Hand & Flowers, you see, has two Michelin stars, meaning the food it serves is on a par with the likes of Heston Blumenthal's Dinner and Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons. The only difference is that it's served in a pub.
Kerridge's stars are giving rise to speculation that Michelin is embracing the "casualisation" of dining, perhaps as a reflection that the British eating public expects high standards of food, but doesn't want to eat in a formal environment.
Now that the Sorn Inn at Mauchline, the first Scottish pub to gain a Bib Gourmand in 2005, has sadly lost its gong after eight continuous years, it means that all the Bib Gourmands in Scotland are attached to restaurants rather than pubs. They all offer dishes of seasonal local produce at more affordable prices than chez Kerridge. Galvin Brasserie de Luxe in Edinburgh offers mains for up to £18.50, and a pre-theatre three-course prix fixe at £19.50; dinner at The Dogs is around £12.95 for a main course. In Glasgow, Stravaigin's Turkish-style poussin with sucuk and Medjool dates is £19.95. Out of town, the Sorn Inn's mains come in at £14.95 for 12-hour braised pork cheeks; the Hawthorn, on a croft at Benderloch, Oban, has a fish stew main for £14.
Together with the reasonable "prix fixe" menu now common in fine-dining restaurants, it seems to me the lines are being blurred as everyone aims for the all-important mid-market.
We have to be vigilant, though. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I'm all for the casualisation of the kind of fresh, well-sourced, brilliantly devised food once out of the reach of all but the most wealthy. What we don't want is the Michelinisation of its prices.
Is this Scotland's best-value lunch? Ron Mackenna reviews The Peat Inn - page 44
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