THE Scullery in Glasgow has finally opened.

I say finally, because I have been following its slow progress from afar. These days it's fashionable to set up a Facebook page months before your restaurant actually opens its doors, and as was the case with the Gannet, the run-up to this opening seemed interminable. Unless you enjoy sharing other people's renovation traumas and triumphs - "Hurrah, the plumber turned up today to connect the sink!"- an easily navigated website that is not "under construction" or "coming soon", one that clearly shows the menu, might be more to the point than a stream of random "likes" of the "Wow, love your new taps!" variety.

That said, the building work at 10 Claremont Street in Finnieston merits attention. You can see why The Scullery was slow to gestate. This is one good-looking restaurant with "window walls" that create an inside-out feel, bringing the surrounding cityscape into your line of vision. Now that the evenings are dark, The Scullery can cleverly exploit the possibility of creating interesting urban reflections, so rather than feeling enclosed inside a confined indoor space, you are part of a wider metropolitan environment.

The interior itself is clean and contemporary with its stripped back brick and stone, and nothing, from skirting boards to door handles, has been done on the cheap. A class act on the design front, The Scullery is an exceptionally agreeable space to spend time in.

Food visuals, on the other hand, are dated. The Scullery would do well to exorcise the ghost of fine dining that haunts its presentation. Most dishes come on those silly, impractical slates, so when you try to finish off your sauce, they make a grating scraping noise. Slates are never hot enough, so the food rapidly cools upon them. At The Scullery, it's noticeable that table staff remove each slate one at a time, presumably because to carry more would be just too heavy, a factor exacerbated by the additional crockery and enamelware that comes teetering on top of them. Try stacking a few of those on your forearm, I dare you. Frankly, if you could stagger to the kitchen with several slates in your hands without dropping anything, you'd deserve a hefty tip.

The Scullery menu is a rootless amalgam of middle-of-the-road Mod Brit brasserie, ubiquitous Americana (short rib, lobster roll, burger), and a random dollop of Middle Eastern (falafel, halloumi). Not a coherent line-up in my book, but well executed, it would certainly pass muster. Wild mushroom bruschetta with poached duck egg and Hollandaise sauce was the better of our starters, although the fungi in question looked to me mainly like cultivated types. In this context, we must surely reserve the word "wild" to refer only to foraged mushrooms?

Three nice, juicy scallops peeped out from under a wan cap of cauliflower purée that didn't taste of saffron as promised. Pea shoots wilting on top of the hot bivalves didn't improve their appearance, although what tasted like a pancetta "dust" spruced it up a bit. The better main course was a stickily glazed pork belly, flanked by puréed carrots and workaday mash. An unexceptional submarine bun filled with fried lobster that tasted more of garlic than crustacea. A promising-sounding "lemon and tarragon aioli" was a palate-souring, gloopy, acetic emulsion. Thin, crisp chips were fine, but at £17.50, this ensemble wasn't up to scratch.

Vegans get a mention out the blue in the form of a "vegan chocolate orange brownie with molten cocoa and Amaretto sauce", although they might not appreciate the compliment. This might be the worst brownie I have ever eaten, with its heavy, elastic consistency that resembled overworked bread dough, and its claggy adhesion to the roof of the mouth. The sour-tasting sauce that anointed it, with its whiff of volatile alcohol and haunting burnt flavour notes, was also very strange. By contrast, a powdery dry Pavlova with whipped cream, a few raspberries, and an incongruous drizzle of salt caramel was light relief.

The décor is sorted, but in terms of its food offer, this promising new enterprise has more work to do.