Joanna Blythman: Cail Bruich, Great Western Road, Glasgow

Food rating 7 and a half /10

SHOOT me down in flames if you disagree, but Glasgow doesn’t appear to have a top-flight fine dining restaurant these days. The city saw off Gordon Ramsay and Michael Caines, so it’s fair to ask, does it really want one, and if so, would it support it? Meanwhile, in the absence of Edinburgh’s collection of Michelin stars, there are a few contenders for the establishment that looks most like Glasgow’s “treat” restaurant, and one of them is Cail Bruich.

It seems to have got a bit swankier and more aspirational since the last time I visited. Stickers with the Michelin knife and fork and endorsements from Harden’s Guide stud the window. It has a tasting menu. We were offered mineral water (we asked for tap). There are spa-style rolled hand towels to dry your hands with in the lavatory. A complimentary “micro-course” eases you into the mood for spending money. On our visit, it consisted of a suitably summery melon and cucumber “gazpacho” capped with a little crabmeat. And making the point that not everything is pretty and girly, there are hunks of sourdough bread to get stuck into along with soft, whippy butter, and sybaritic pork dripping, sculpted into a sleek quenelle and topped with a crumble of pork crackling.

Our starters went swimmingly well. The first, a soothing set Parmesan custard, was flanked by artichoke heart (clearly prepared on the premises, not bought-in and vinegary), a stunning pitch-black olive dressing, warm almonds, and succulent cheeks of “heritage” tomato. These days, “heritage” seems to denote any better-than-average tomato that has the possibility of tasting of something. Our second starter echoed our hopes for a better summer than we’ve had: mackerel both grilled and marinated, in a cool Scandinavian line-up with pickled mustard seed, and dill flowers, given an English flourish in the form of gooseberry compote. Both starters were good.

I often wish, in retrospect, that I’d chosen two starters rather than a starter and a main course, which is just what happened at Cail Bruich. Our main courses seemed to flag up the kitchen’s limits. They were too complicated, with too many elements, rather like a student’s essay that is stiff with references, but lacking a coherent overall argument. The Dornoch lamb, cooked two ways (slow/fast), made a dizzying plateful. Goat’s curd, peas, broad beans, batons of finger radishes, courgette ribbons, fronds of claytonia, chive flowers, green beans, herb gnocchi, little gem lettuce, mange tout, a brown sauce, a strange substance with a taste somewhere between “gentleman’s relish” and rarebit – there was some nice cooking in this busy melée, but where was the overall focus? The second main course – turbot, on fried floury potatoes, with an odd raisin relish, “burnt onion”, and a creamy, winey foam – was more strategic in conception, but unfortunately, that thinking was flawed. The warm onion halves didn’t work with the fish. They made pretty receptacles for the foam, but to do so had to be partially cooked and crunchily hard. The combined wintry sweetness of these and the raisins was an ill-conceived match for this king of white fish (£24), which in this instance, was tasting more like a nondescript steak from a lesser species.

With desserts we were back on safer ground, as one might have a right to expect when paying an eye-popping £10 a shot. Still, Valrhona chocolate isn’t cheap, and the Manjari chocolate delice the kitchen had produced from it was opulent enough, and so polished as to almost justify the price tag. For good measure it came with first-class plum and cherry sorbets and a compelling cacao dust. Blackberry soufflé had risen beautifully, and came with not only good custard, but also with an enlivening elderflower and yoghurt sorbet, which compensated for the fact that the soufflé was rather under-fruited.

Our wine by the glass, which was corked, was replaced instantly, and without any question, with a wine that was almost twice as expensive. This professionalism gives me hope that Cail Bruich could climb the fine dining heights, if its kitchen could eschew complication.