High steaks

To be blunt, I wouldn’t normally give this sort of hotel the time of day, except that it is owned by Macdonald Hotels – a group that takes its food surprisingly seriously – and also because it is in an area with a dearth of good eating-out options. But the fact of the matter is that its new Scottish Steak Club is much, much better than you might predict.

The restaurant inhabits an extension built on to the stone exterior walls of the original building, enclosing its Gothic stone arches. It owes its interior to Glasgow’s Thr3 Design, which has stamped on it a determinedly bovine concept. The walls are clad in fake cowhide and hung with framed images of bucolic grazing cattle. Booth and sofa seating is upholstered in blood-red leather. Dark wood seems to signify the soil. Put it this way, the connections between living animals and the meat on your plate are right under your nose and almost visceral. This isn’t an interior decor scheme for vegetarians.

You know that the chef has a decent budget to work within when you get decent bread with a disc of classy Lescure butter, and the starters flagged up cooking effort that was far from casual. The baked pumpkin and sage ravioli was excellent because the eggy pasta was expertly fine and silky and the stuffing was surprisingly concentrated, packing an intense pumpkin punch. Fish cakes were impeccable. They had a crunchy golden crust and the filling wasn’t heavy on the spuds and the farmed salmon, as is so often the case, but primarily consisted of fresh-tasting white fish, spiked with lemon and green herbs.

The fish cakes came with a mellow caper mayonnaise, and it wasn’t the chef’s fault that I went on to choose grilled lemon sole with capers and parsley butter. (As you might have gathered, I love capers.) But there was otherwise a bit of a feeling of repetition with garnishes. Watercress, for instance, seemed to turn up with everything apart from dessert. I love watercress too, but if the Scottish Steak Club wanted to up its game further, it could do with looking at customising accompaniments to individual dishes, rather than using the same bolt-ons for everything.

You couldn’t quibble with the freshness of the fish, although its parsley butter seemed to have metamorphosed into more of a beurre blanc, which ever so slightly masked the fish.

Getting to the meaty heart of the menu, a rugged rib eye steak, cut from the centre of the rib and still on the bone, cooked on a Josper charcoal grill, was everything you’d hope for. Cut from a carcass hung in the traditional way for 21 days, it had loads of flavour and was seared to an even pinkness. Its creamy caramel-like peppercorn sauce suited it well. The hand-cut chips could have done with a Heston touch – they were a bit too soft and would have benefited from a further rapid, last-minute fry. The “seasonal greens” were tedious – standard beans, mange tout peas and broccoli that seemed to have been dunked in water. The come-hither description conjured up something a little less ubiquitous.

For all that the menu centres itself on macho grills, there’s a delicate touch with puddings. Crème brulée came in a trio. One was vanilla seed-speckled, another had strands of pink rhubarb, yet another used white chocolate. Each one had a good consistency and a nicely glazed whisper of caramel on the top. A peach melba would have benefited from being served on a plate rather than in a sundae glass, however the slippery peach and milky dairy ice cream became somewhat special swathed in a vivid, perfumed fresh raspberry coulis.

Food like this puts the Inchyra Grange on the map, even if its location doesn’t.

Scottish Steak Club

Inchyra Grange Hotel, Grange Road, Polmont 0844 879 9044

Lunch/dinner £16-£35

Food rating 8/10