Modern dining Can the kitchen match the dapper surroundings of this readers’ favourite?

172 AT THE CAIRD

IAM near Dundee, and looking for lunch in Dundee, and remembering all those readers’ emails pointing out that not only is there life outside Glasgow, but it thrives. In Dundee. Yes, I’m looking at you, Mr J Stewart. Well, I find myself on the phone calling Dundee. And calling Dundee. But nobody is answering. In fact I’m still calling the restaurant that I have been roundly and rightly berated for not yet reviewing when I remember that in Dundee, in fact probably in the whole country, it is a Monday. And it’s closed today.

We’re nothing if not resourceful in this restaurant review business and a short time later I’m walking up sunny, bustling Nethergate and looking at what was restaurant number three on my list of reader-recommended places to eat in Dundee: 172 at the Caird.

I’m a little surprised at the saggy, flappy banners hanging outside proclaiming various culinary incentives because in my experience they rarely bode well but in I step. I’m still asking myself: “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Sorry, is it a hall? Is it a pub?” when I’m met at the front door and whisked upstairs to a dining room.

Here, walls gleam in that refined battleship grey that they must be making a fortune knocking out at Rosyth. Aren’t half the new restaurants in Glasgow in exactly the same hue?

Tables? I can take my pick. Seats? I’ll have the one looking across the Tay to yon big bridge.

I note Monday’s fellow diners are scattered loosely throughout a very large room and are mainly female. I scan the menu and go through the restaurant reviewer’s ritual of trying to work out what’s made here and what’s bought in. And give up.

Moments later I’m eating hunks of fresh tuna rolled in spinach leaf, then in filo, cut on the diagonal and served standing to attention like little soldiers.

“Nice, dear, but we thought the tuna was very pink,” says one of the ladies at the window table as their plates are cleared, their tuna soldiers still standing erect and completely unfinished. She’s not wrong, but I’d say more blue than pink. Think sushi, but way too thick for that.

I nibble on a bowl of pleasant potato croquettes filled with oozy Italian taleggio cheese and play with briefly, but ultimately don’t eat much of, a rather dry-looking dish of bresaola with grissini and cherry tomatoes. The Crowdie cheese that strangely comes with it is tangy and lovely.

I ended up with this only because all the other starters on the set lunch menu – at £9.95 for two courses – consist of plates of either mozzarella, smoked salmon or an obligatory soup. Easily assembled. Disappointingly unadventurous.

I also ordered it because I wanted to try the sea bass with tapenade and new potatoes and, of course, two courses are the minimum. The sea bass is fine. But probably better to serve the fish with its skin crisped and the new potatoes boiled instead of the other way around.

I was hemmed in by the choice. It was either that or chicken breast, or a chicken caesar salad, or a bronze die penne with gorgonzola. And the last time I saw bronze die penne they were giving away Jamie Oliver’s version at knock-down prices in Sainsbury’s, we Scots presumably remaining to be convinced that a bit of metal that allegedly makes the pasta surface a little rougher is worth a premium price.

The best dishes at lunch today are that tuna though it definitely needs a rethink, those little potato croquettes and some reasonable, but certainly no more than that, whole baby squid in batter.

Curiously, they all came from the tapas section of the bar menu that was given to me alongside the rest. Perhaps there is more evidence of cooking in the evening. Perhaps this is just a Monday menu.

Either way I suspect this is not Dundee’s best. If you know a restaurant Ron should review, email ronmackenna@fastmail.fm

PHOTOGRAPH: RICHARD FREW With the food struggling to get out of first gear, the airy interior and sumptuous view across the Tay are arguably the highlights of 172 at the Caird