Tasting Rooms Dundee

Room for improvement

I keep on meeting Dundonians who hate the city and never want to go back. A hard-bitten place, they complain, with precious little taste or culture.

Setting aside some heinous planning crimes, I actively like Dundee and could quite imagine myself living there, much to the amusement of my Dundonian ex-pat acquaintances.

And it is beginning to feel like an increasingly sophisticated city. Somebody had a good idea when they converted an old jute warehouse in the centre of the city into “a unique venue for the appreciation of wine, the visual arts and other tasteful pursuits”.

At the Tasting Rooms, they have made an impressive job of managing the space: the ground floor is given over to selling wine and delicatessen items. An atrium brings light into the building and an airy mezzanine houses a spacious café and exhibition space.

The whole set-up feels extremely civilised. As we browsed through the wines and food down below, a pianist played away on a grand piano up above.

Whoever designed the place made one slip-up, however. In such an ample space, why create only a tiny, cramped kitchen? At first, the thought crossed my mind that this was one of those sinister-sounding “microwave only” cafés, but then I spotted a proper stove. Still, it was evident that most of the food was pre-prepared and stacked up in plastic containers in the fridge, ready for an assembly job when required.

This might, just might, be okay if the Tasting Rooms was thinking along Italian enoteca lines. An enoteca is essentially a wine shop where you taste wines by the glass and can choose from a limited number of dishes which allow you to sample local foods that go along with them; crostinis, cheeses, salumi and the very occasional hot dish; a couple of desserts.

The enoteca concept seems perfect for the Tasting Rooms. You can see how, with some good sourcing, it could serve low-effort food with integrity that would complement them; platters of artisan Scottish cheeses, smoked venison, Arbroath Smokies, potted shrimps, Ayrshire bacon sandwiches … the odd lamb stew or plate of real stovies.

Instead, the Tasting Rooms serves a familiar global village portfolio of sarnies, wraps and salads. Why, in Dundee, would you serve a sandwich of Cajun chicken, salsa and Monterey Jack cheese? Why do the Scots, indeed the Brits, confuse a peppering of random foreign ingredients with true food discernment?

Not that the food is terrible, just disappointing. The soup of the day – fresh asparagus – was fine, suggesting the kitchen can cook when it has the space. A taster of brine-laden olives, odd-tasting hummus, olive oil and balsamic vinegar with organic bread was pretty ordinary.

My salad of ‘fresh’ rocket was wilting to khaki. It should have been binned. It came with reasonable gorgonzola and pear – the latter ingredient seemed to have been poached in red wine, making it more like a pudding that had strayed into a starter. A sandwich with cream cheese, pastrami and onion marmalade was adequate, given that it seemed to be mainly an amalgam of bought-in ingredients.

We declined the pretentiously titled ‘assiètte of hand-prepared sorbet’ having ascertained that it had not been prepared by the hands of anyone in the kitchen. A vanilla pannacotta, however, was surprisingly well made, even if it came without the ‘plum soup’ that had helped sell it to us, and a chocolate tart, looking rather too perfect to be made on site, nevertheless tasted quite good.

This is an amiable venue with some good ideas. With a clearer, bolder, enoteca-style approach, it could be really good. But does the management have the vision to go for it? And if it did, would Dundee be up for it?

© Sunday Herald