As the name suggests, in physical terms Brett is more of a bar than a restaurant, although as we soon discover it takes its food seriously. This is one of those tall thin spaces you find in Finnieston with a small mezzanine built up at the back. I’d rather eat downstairs at the stylish bar. It’s a triumph of smart lighting that makes a clever feature out of lines of sparkling wine glasses, and you can watch the chefs cook, but there are three of us and we want a table, so we’re heading on up to our candlelit eerie, which is intimate, but dark. Even with extra tea lights obligingly provided by the staff, we’re still using the torches on our phones to read the menu.
Brett’s menu isn’t long but I appreciate the curated nature of the kitchen’s shopping list, so keenly focused as it is on carefully sourced ingredients. Sourdough from the Freedom Bakery, a refreshing Puglian ‘orange’ (natural) wine served affordably by the glass, Loch Fyne oysters that have been cleaned so meticulously that they flow off the shell into our appreciative mouths. I can take or leave the fermented green chilli sauce they come with, more heat than flavour; I’m happier with the lemon wedges. The bivalves are served on stones, which either the drunk or myopic diner might mistake for baby spuds or olives in this low light. Then our impressions take a dip. Slow cooked duck croquettes are quite plain, and taste more of the frying oil than anything else. What looks to be a beetroot hummus is too garlicky. We take a dim view (excuse the pun) of the beef tartare on toast, a demonstration of how innovation rarely improves on the classic treatment. The beef, not finely enough chopped so a little elastic in the mouth, looks a little grey- lighting again perhaps?- but also because it’s been mixed with a charcoal mayonnaise. That does nothing for its appearance, and then there’s that belligerent wood smoke taste to get past.
READ MORE: Ron Mackenna's restaurant review: Bing Soul, Dumbarton Road, Glasgow
But when the vegetable dishes tip up, a category that’s rarely a star performer, it’s as if the kitchen can show its true skill, a rare ability to make vegetables deserving centrepieces, the royalty at the table. These aren’t any old wholesale market vegetables, they’re from Locavore, Glasgow’s progressive retailer and grower. Those irregular spring onions, the sort too big, too pungent, too unruly to eat much raw, and unsuitable for storing, have been roasted, or possibly fried, whole- their green flags, their hairy roots, their plump bulbs all of a piece, and their golden bronze colour is charred dark in places. They’re sitting on Romesco, that Iberian pepper sauce that’s thickened with almonds. What a fabulous and winningly original treatment!
And here is my new best way to cook courgettes, slivers of green and yellow ones, slit lengthways, griddled, then served at room temperature, glistening with oil, on courgette purée that’s alive with lime and mint, a neat quenelle of crème fraîche on the side.
We’re on a roll, a feeling underscored by this fantastic chunk of cod that’s been roasted in piquant Nduja, capped with buttery capers and an assertive squeeze of lemon. The oily capsicum heat of this piquant Calabrian sausage heightens the already first rate flavour of this meaty chunk of prime cod.
As we walked into the bar we noticed the cheeses sitting at room temperature- as it should be- handmade cheeses, not factory ones. So we order a small selection: Driftwood, a ripe Somerset goat’s cheese with an oozing ring under its charcoal skin that’s pulling away from its creamy middle; Errington’s Lanark Blue, Scotland’s unsurpassable ewe’s milk legend; fruity, mature, unpasteurised, utterly excellent Isle of Mull cheddar. These are dazzling cheeses, served with rye crackers, oatcakes, bread and chutney. As a token nod to dessert we share a lime posset, and I’m so happy that we didn’t miss this butter-thick confection that’s loaded with lime zest and flanked by homemade shortbread.
Ok, there’s the odd off note, but there’s some true talent at the stove here. Is there a chef’s trophy for vegetable cooking? Here’s a deserving winner if ever I saw one.
Bar Brett, 321 Great Western Road, Glasgow
Food: 8/10
Service: 8/10
Atmosphere: 8/10
Value for money: 9/10
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