The appetite for gastropubs has never been as strong in Scotland as it is south of the Border but that could all change with the nationwide launch of the first-ever Scottish pub menu devised by a Michelin-starred chef.
From today, customers in Scottish pubs can sip on a Grolsch, a Caffrey's, a Coors or a Cobra beer while enjoying a selection of mid-priced seasonal dishes, all made in-house, from a menu created by Martin Wishart, chef-patron of the Michelin-starred Restaurant Martin Wishart in Leith.
In place of the usual bought-in pie and chips or chicken Kiev, punters will be able to choose a starter of ham hock terrine with apple compote at £2.48 or a pan-fried pigeon breast with spiced red cabbage at £5.42.
Main courses will include roast cod with cabbage and smoked salmon at £10.94, chicken cooked in beer at £10.86, or venison casserole at £10.94. All dishes will be made from seasonal Scottish ingredients and made from scratch in-house, and matched with a beer.
Menus can be downloaded by chefs, publicans or licensees in any of the 1500 pubs, bars and clubs brewers Molson Coors supplies in Scotland – including St Jude's Glasgow, Carrigan's in Blantyre, the Signature Pub Group in Aberdeen, and the Montpelier group and Peacock Inn in Edinburgh.
A spokesman for the brewers said: "Any publican or licensee in Scotland can download the menu – they don't need to be a Molson Coors customer."
The idea behind the dramatic move is to encourage Scottish publicans to improve the food they offer by cooking on site, and to make the most of food as a revenue driver.
Research conducted by Molson Coors, who invited Wishart to work with them in Scotland, found only one-third (33%) of pubs with turnover of less than £300,000 currently offered hot food and that, despite two-thirds of Scottish pubs offering food, just 10% of pub-goers eat in pubs at least once a fortnight.
Wishart, whose restaurant at Cameron House at Loch Lomond won its first Michelin star last year and who recently opened The Honours, a brasserie-style restaurant in Edinburgh, said he was delighted to be asked to create the pub menus.
He said: "This has been a new challenge for me, as I'm more used to matching food with wine or whisky rather than beer.
"It was important the dishes were practical and easy for pubs to produce. The menu is fully costed, reasonably priced and, importantly, returns a healthy profit.
"But it's also a challenge to chefs, to inspire them to cook in-house and to source their own ingredients direct from suppliers such as independent game dealers and fishmongers.
Wishart, a columnist for The Herald Magazine, added: "Some pubs tend to use a lot of bought-in, pre-made meals that are not produced locally.
"With this menu we're not trying to produce a Michelin standard menu. We're trying to introduce something that's seasonal and local and that doesn't cost the earth.
"Some 71,000 jobs rely on business from pubs in Scotland and we want to secure and even grow that figure."
Phil Whitehead, managing director of Molson Coors Scotland, said: "The pubs with food trend is much less mature in Scotland than in England, where food now accounts for more than half of overall turnover and is described as the reason behind the resilience of some outlets during a tough trading environment."
l Read Martin Wishart's column in The Herald Magazine every Saturday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article