I like cut and cost of new Coulotte
Steakhouse beefs things up for Anna
Two decades as a vegetarian has left gaps in my meat education that I’m still trying to fill.
When The Coulotte Steakhouse flitted into view, I wondered why a restaurant was named after a hybrid trouser-skirt.
Discovering that it’s a cut of steak – a trimmed version of top sirloin, with the bone and some of the muscle removed – left me not much the wiser. Is that good? Only one way to find out.
Coulotte is up a stair on Cambuslang’s main street. It took me two circuits of a one-way filter system to be sure I was in the right place. It’s an unlikely location, hiding above an old school pub, beside a florist and Tandoori Knights takeaway.
The Jade Garden’s red tasselled lanterns have been ripped out and the walls lined with raw wood, making the stairwell smell like a timber warehouse. There’s an open kitchen along the back wall, a bar in the corner and exposed pipes on the ceiling.
There are no cosy booths, other soft furnishings or even tablecloths. The view is of a council car park. If the brief was to create a post-industrial barn, the designer has played a blinder.
The menu is short, which always cheers my heart. The fewer the options, the more confidence the kitchen has. Steaks, from rump to tomahawk, are the main attraction. There are also steak-heavy burgers, sandwiches and a smattering of plant-based bits for the awkward vegan teenager in the family party.
Even better, the steaks come with sauce, vegetables and chips or mash included in the extremely reasonable price. Gouging city centre joints, watch and learn.
There are no official starters, although we could have had a salad or corn on the cob from the sides menu. But when Carb Boy identified a slow-cooked rib of beef with mashed potatoes that could be shared, ordered it then announced that I should look elsewhere, I let that go.
This was a mighty piece of beef, a tomahawk’s wee sister slow cooked to melting point then finished on the grill. The meat slithered on to the plate at the touch of a fork. A light hand added the barbecue sauce, a condiment that responds to moderation. It nestled on a fluffy nest of mashed potatoes which had a terrifyingly high butter-to-spud ratio.
Carb Boy was down to the bone on one side when he noticed that the garlicky green beans promised on the menu were nowhere to be found.
My coulotte steak – I had to see what all the fuss was about – promised to come with garlic greens. I expected something leafy, not lukewarm broccoli and slimy mange touts. The roast tomatoes needed another blast in a hot oven. I also ordered my steak rare, hoping it would be soft and yielding to the touch, bloody in the middle. This was a medium.
The coulotte is a neat, rounded cut which means none of the gnarly
edges that contrast so well with a tender pink interior. Not the cow’s finest moment.
It was garnished with edible flowers, which treads a fine line between gimmicky and cute. The accompanying garlic butter was good, spotted with parsley and made with fresh garlic, not the dehydrated muck that tastes of bad breath.
Home-style chips dusted with salt and rosemary were very fine. So fine that Carb Boy not only cleaned his sizeable plate, he dipped the last of the chips in the garlic butter and saw them off too. He also tidied up the onion rings. These were fried in Irn-Bru batter, a new one on me. I couldn’t get a whiff of girder but the ones at the top of the stack were impressively crispy. By the bottom of the dish, they were not holding up so well. Coulotte’s dessert options are so limited that they are not printed on a menu or written on a blackboard. There was Biscoff cheesecake or vanilla ice cream. When we ordered the former, it came with the latter as well. The delightful waiter put on an extra scoop because he knew we were sharing.
The cheesecake was a triumph
– the toasty, caramelised notes of the crunchy biscuits go brilliantly with cream cheese. Zigzags of caramel sauce and a rosette of skooshy cream made this a deeply dirty sweet treat.
Coulotte has not been open for long and has the rough edges of a work in progress. When everyone orders steak, it’s hard to get them all just right. No starters make for long waits. But the staff’s charm smoothed over these upsets.
A deliciously light bill also helped.
It’s great to see an independent restaurant with ambition in a Costa and Wetherspoon strip. Good luck to them.