Cafezique, Glasgow - Restaurants in Glasgow | s1play.com

Great expectations

Review published on 19/05/2008 © Sunday Herald

I've been looking forward to two things since the beginning of the year: the next Amy Winehouse album - hmmm, could be some time yet - and the opening of Cafezique, the cafe-restaurant attached to Glasgow's inspiring deli and prepared food emporium, Delizique.

Most delis inhabit a comfort zone of boughtin baguettes and twee pots of chutney. Owner Mhairi Taylor, on the other hand, has had the nerve and conviction to equip Delizique with a proper kitchen, and surround herself with a team of talented bakers and chefs.

When the supermarkets tell me they sell food that's as good as I'd cook at home, I know they're talking bollocks. But if Taylor were to make that claim, the only way I could disagree would be by saying that Delizique's food is even better than I might make at home.

Memories of my last "can't be bothered cooking today" takeaway are still vivid: an invigorating Indian-style rasam soup, a main course salad of Puy lentils, roasted squash and feta, and a statuesque beetroot and pistachio cake with a fabulous pink cream-cheesy frosting - tinted with pomegranate juice, perhaps?

At any rate, it's all great stuff and Taylor's new sit-down eatery more than met my already high expectations. The specials menu on "Our first Saturday - so please be kind!" needed few pleas in mitigation. The adventurous and mainly seasonal ingredients were exciting. The cooking occupied that perfect zone where ingredients do not just become a vehicle for showing off chefs' techniques but are allowed to speak for themselves, helped along with just the little touch of inspiration needed to make them sing. My kind of food.

I've never been totally convinced, if I'm honest, about razor clams. They so easily turn into rubber bands. Here they had been chopped up raw with halibut and "cooked" in a ceviche marinade with lemon juice, shallots, capers, gherkins and raw beetroot. This is the way to deal with these tricky little devils. Served on the shell, with a fistful of juicy green claytonia leaves and Delizique's great home-baked bread, this was one of the best things I've eaten this year. Equally faultless, if less original, was impeccably grilled squid, spiked with chilli and flanked by organic leaves and feathery bronze fennel.

There are lots of cheap propositions for hard-up weekdays, like an HLT (grilled halloumi cheese, organic leaves and tomato on Delizique's own fantastic ciabatta), smoked mackerel and beetroot pate, eggs Benedict - but the weekend highlights were too interesting to miss. A sparklingly fresh John Dory grilled on the bone made a persuasive calling card for Cafezique's fish supplier on Skye.

This splendid fish went beautifully with its darkly roasted sliced potatoes, interspersed with fleshy cheeks of sun-dried tomatoes and plump olives.

Scared of wild rabbit? Bones, shot and all that? Then try the rabbit at Cafezique. Tender meat fell off the leg, softened by a mustardy vegetable mulch thick with wild garlic leaves, and freshened by the last-minute addition of bright green peas and broad beans slipped out of both pod and inner skin. Sweet roast beetroot complemented the gamey flavour of the meat.

Clocking the dishes floating past our table, I made a list of things I want to try in future. Abundant plates of super-sized langoustines, puffy goat's cheese soufflés, not to mention all the simple but lovely breakfast possibilities, like Delizique's own brioche, or granola with mountain honey. I'm quite convinced I could eat my way through a loaf of Delizique's crusty sourdough toast, even without the French lactic butter or its own marmalade and jam.

Our desserts were fine - a fig and plum frangipane tart and golden Jersey crème brulée tart - though both would have been improved by thinner, shorter pastry. With Cafezique inundated with diners from day one, it may take the kitchen a little fine-tuning to get the shoprestaurant supply balance just right.

Cafezique manages to pack a bar and two dining floors into a very small space. The person who designed it must be a wizard. The decor isn't in your face, and the whole place is very clever - not a carpet in sight, yet you can still hear yourself think.

This is a rare thing, excellent acoustics but lots of atmosphere and a bubbly background buzz.

© Sunday Herald