Hillhead Book Club, Glasgow - Restaurants in Glasgow | s1play.com

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Review published on 01/06/2010 © Sunday Herald

When it’s natural, quirkiness can be charming. When it becomes a brand, it’s downright irritating. Everything at the Hillhead Book Club presents as a little bit kooky and eccentric: unmatched cutlery, jumble sale plates and further assorted recession chic. The menu looks as if it was typed on a veteran manual typewriter. It is annotated with random witticisms such as “pie of the day – bring your own Bovril”, or “chicken and chorizo hotpot – (a lot of “ch” for one dish, but worthwhile)”, or “Eton mess (posh twats … great dessert)”.

Actually, the Book Club has bugger all to do with books and absolutely no connection with any kind of free-thinking, intellectual counter culture as far as I can see. It’s just a very big bar with clever marketing that occupies the old Salon cinema premises.

The Book Club describes itself as “The West End kitchen where nowt cost more than a tenner” which, along with a number of opening meal offers, may account for why it was rammed, mainly with students, when I visited. The “turf of the day” dish – beef olives – underlined the vintage theme, but don’t interpret that as a compliment.

This was a truly grotesque offering, like something from Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom. There were two sausages of the salty, spongy type wrapped in what looked like a thin slice of well-cooked (grey) roast beef that seemed to have been cooked all over again. They came in a glossy, glutinous gravy that resembled BP’s oily contribution to the Gulf of Mexico, and were flanked by mashed potatoes – nothing else. At £10, it is hard to see this as a bargain. In fact, you would have to pay me to eat it and, even then, I’d need to be desperately broke.

Mind you, the beef olives were probably as bad as the cooking gets here. Other dishes were more acceptable and not totally charmless but, at its best, the food was still crude and basic. There was nothing wrong with the creamy mushrooms on toast other than the fact you could knock it up at home in minutes. Meatloaf, rather oddly served as a starter, was unappetisingly grey and firm, although the flavour was reasonable. It came with a too-vinegary piccalilli but it did taste home-made.

Why did I go for the club sandwich? Well, I have a nostalgia for them. They are what I order in foreign hotels when I have overdosed on local food. And the Book Club’s was meant to come with chipotle mayonnaise. The only problem was that no-one in the kitchen seemed to know that chipotles are smoked chillis with a very distinctive flavour. What I got was something that tasted like commercial thousand island dressing, possibly with some chilli powder mixed in. The bacon in the sandwich was rather good, smoky and crisp, as though it had been dry-cured. I didn’t eat the chicken – I never do, unless I’m convinced that it isn’t the intensively-reared broiler sort – and any club sandwich is never going to thrill when it’s made with pappy, sliced bread. So basically, I ate the likeable skin-on chips for my main course. That’s a balanced meal for you.

As with many outfits that purport to be cheap, the emphasis on low-priced main courses can blind you to the relatively high price-tag of starters, desserts and incidentals. For £3, a small bowl of what looked like root vegetable crisps straight from a packet didn’t hit me between the eyes with the word “bargain”. Two nerve-tingling cold pears in an icy red wine syrup, served entirely nude without any other accompaniment, didn’t feel like the greatest deal at £4 either. This is edging towards the prices commanded by chefs who put some effort into their desserts.

I now appreciate that the menu description of the “I can’t believe it’s not bread and butter pudding” as “like school, without bullies” should have been taken literally. I suggest renaming it as “I can’t believe that you can justify charging £4.50 for such a woefully institutional pudding” or something that slips off the tongue more readily.