HAS this guy started here yet? I ask, nodding down to a photo on my phone of chef Miguel Angel Major.

“Yeah, yeah,” says the waitress, who’s pausing from setting up the table. “He’s here right now.”

Now? I ask, looking somewhat sceptically about. At 3.30pm on a Wednesday where I’m the one and only customer, and already there is absolutely zero feel of Michelin-starred anything about this place?

“Yes, definitely, we have a busy dinner service tonight,” she adds before heading back in.

Hmm, I think, as I rock back on my wobbly chair, scan the pricey menu at my umbrella-less and sloping table, squint through the blistering July sun along Argyle Street on the Costa Del Finnieston and continue to read on my phone.

Michelin star in a restaurant in Spain in 2017, collaborator at the El Bulli foundation until 2015 and now Glasgow: making Miguel Angel, kind of amazingly, the second one-time star holder to arrive in these culinary parts very, very recently.

Fast forward, say, an hour during which I have had to get up once to ask for clean cutlery, moaned to myself about dishes not being cleared from the table, turned down Diet Coke from a scoosher, and assumed the generally slack and disinterested feel to the service, pleasant and efficient Slovenian waitress aside, is probably due to the time of day. Not by Spanish design.

And consider also that at Compartir, Cadaques, Spain, they do very, relaxed casual, trot out the old magic of El Bulli yadayada and now scorn Michelin stars - yet you can inhale the quality.

And … I’ll later pay almost £47 here for what is no more than a late lunch fully aware that if I went to Unalome a hop, skip and a jump away not just from here but from a new Michelin star, lunch would be £30 and the service would be on a different planet.

Hmmm, Ok I’ve probably had one extra course, and pricing seems the same all day (possibly why it’s just me here this afternoon) and I could of course have sat inside - all alone. Curious.

I’m still thinking curious after I’ve popped two Bomba De La Barcelonetta from their grooves on a wooden plank thing into my mouth, crisp shell, aged beef, a 200-year-old recipe apparently. Potato, yes I’m thinking mince and tattie bon-bons with aoili. Pleasant - nothing more.

I watch as a guy in shorts finally stops yakking on his hands-free and gets out a parked white Porsche 911 to disappear inside the restaurant. The chef? Landlord? Designer perhaps of the wooden-rimmed metal tray that carries the Arroz De Caza (house rice).

Hold hard here. This will turn out to be an ooh-yah dish, a turning point, not just for the Valencian rice cooked in the tray in chicken stock, with chermoula, delicious as it is, but for the hunks of wood pigeon, charred, yet pink as they should be, sticky jus on them and loaded with such flavour and texture I’m actually scraping the pan.

Yes, the huge metal label with the word Rioja on the tray is perhaps a bridge too far, but what a dish.

And even better has arrived on yet another elaborate serving device.

Canape De Pollo Y Pulpo or Mediterranean Octopus (Mediterranean in Scotland?), parsley gel, baby chard, all set atop crispy chicken skin which is picked up and the whole thing, eaten, crunched, enjoyed in an explosion of sweet, savoury, richness. A triumph.

There has been a dish of cured cod in a tangy yet fresh tomato cream. Light and refreshing. And out of curiosity I order the least attractive sounding dessert I have ever come across; Arran Camembert Ice Cream, custard, milk-soaked bread.

First impressions? Ugh, pungent, cheesy ice cream. Second impression? Ugh, soggy sweet bread. Third impression? Hang on, this is good, salty and sweet, the custard super light, the more I eat the more I want. Surprising.

As is Rioja. Food great, atmosphere not so much.

Rioja,

1116 Argyle St, Finnieston, Glasgow G3 8TD

0141 357 3277

Opening Hours: Check website

Menu: New chef, possibly tapas but not really as we know it’; octopus on crispy chicken skin, wood pigeon in a tray of Valencian rice, cured cod, proper grown up food. 4

Service: Outside table on a sweltering day didn’t help, very pleasant Slovenian waitress but overall vibe way out of sync with the pricing and the food. 3

Price: Light food so a good few dishes are needed and they can hit a tenner each generally. Salty for mid-afternoon lunch with I’m assuming prices set at dinner level. 3

Atmosphere: Inside wasn’t very welcoming, outside was a wobbly table, detached service and completely lacking occasion; all kind of hey ho underwhelming. 3

Food: That chicken skin thing with the octopus, even if they dont use Scottish sea-food was outstanding, wood pigeon delicious and wacky ice cream memorable 9