Cathedral House, Glasgow - Restaurants in Glasgow | s1play.com

Cathedral House

Review published on 07/08/2002 © Sunday Herald

In a 'restaurant with rooms' like Cathedral House, the wine list consists of only 12 reds and whites, of which ten are New World. Perhaps this paucity reflects the clientele; apart from us, a handful of American tourists. Or even a diffidence about having a restaurant at all. (This is a Thursday, Friday, Saturday-only dining room.)

You can see why a tourist, or a local for that matter, would like it. It has a historic cathedral close by, heritage atmosphere with the great Victorian bulk of the Royal Infirmary looming over it, and an agreeably quirky dining room with verdant views over to the Victorian Necropolis. But the feeling that it is going through the motions of being a restaurant is underlined by the menu: three starters, five main courses, three desserts, with no surprises. Chargrilled tuna, corn-fed chicken, mushroom risotto, pannacotta, lemon tart ... it's safe, not original.

Butternut squash soup didn't seem like a summery or food miles-aware choice. Neither did French pigeon breast, but it did sound more interesting than a gorgonzola and olive salad. In fact, the pigeon was tough, dark and livery, more like over-hung Scottish wood pigeon than French squab. It came with those grey-green figs. They have no flavour, or even an actively unpleasant one. You need to wait till late August when purple Turkish figs come on stream to find one worth eating. The pigeon also came with mashed turnip. Mashed turnip and figs don't work together. The tuna was fine if unremarkable, nice and pink and perked up by a Nicoise garnish.

The pan-fried red snapper came with squid ink pasta; that classy, black, slippery, slightly fishy spaghetti with a hole at the centre. Snapper has an attractive, firm, almost bouncy flesh which these fillets had retained, but it tasted of zilch. In these days of extended refrigerated transport and blast chillers, fish doesn't need to go off. But it shows its age by absence of flavour. It came with a creamy sauce which was out of sympathy with the Mediterranean pasta and Gordon Ramsay-style bashed new potatoes with tomatoes and olives.

These were nicely done, but that doesn't alter the fact that there was one too many carbohydrate on the plate. A simpler dish of rather chewy rump of lamb on puy lentils with a decent gravy worked better. For puds, a non-descript chocolate mousse was eclipsed by a model lemon tart, which was very fresh and a visual delight with exemplary pastry.

Though the cooking is not without merit, all-in-all, Cathedral House tastes like a half-hearted effort. It needs to decide if it takes itself seriously as a restaurant or wants to concentrate on pub food downstairs. The groundwork's there, but to really excel, they could still go that extra mile.

Illustration by Adrian McMurchie
www.amcmurchie.com