Scottish ‘This is going to go very, very wrong,’ I thought. I had to eat my words – and then some Five March

THERE’S a super-cheery waiter in a pork pie hat geezering it up in this utterly deserted restaurant as outside the dying sun drenches the West

End in a luscious golden glow. Smiley, smiley, chatty, chatty, cheery, cheery. In Liverpudlian too. I feel a deep sigh coming on. Nothing kills the appetite like an empty restaurant. And I oh-so-nearly escaped a moment ago, too, having walked in and executed a cartoon character skid as soon as I scanned the length of this gloomy barn and mentally labelled it giant generic pub circa 1980s.

But before I could complete that u-turn – OK, I’m not the lightest on my feet – staff folding napkins miles away at the top of the bar have tractor-beamed me in with that old breezy: something-to-eat-sir. Uh-oh. Hooked.

The music’s weird, the tumbleweed’s bouncing, some women have now come in from outside with their cocktails; the only thing that keeps me from lumbering into a dive through that plate glass window is what I can see through the square hatch, leading into the kitchen.

Surprisingly, there’s no tattooed chef sleeping off a night in the cells while a deep fat fryer burbles away contendedly. Instead there’s a quiet hustle-bustle of clean kitchen whites. What are they doing, I wonder, as I take my pick of, oh, every single table in the place. Because there are no customers on this dead Tuesday before payday.

I scan the menu anyway. Curious, breezy, light little offerings, though post-Ottolenghi ambitious is my first scary thought. You’ve been in that movie: pretentious Middle Eastern pomegranate and damask executed by cabbage-fisted enthusiasts in the dank, dark north. This is going to go very, very, very wrong, I’m thinking, if that kitchen’s as cold and off the pace as the rest of the place feels.

A surprisingly brief moment later, it’s boom, bish, bosh. Crikey, those are fresh mint leaves. Handfuls of them. Something I’ve not seen in a Scottish restaurant this summer, despite the stuff growing like a weed. Courgettes too. Ditto. Fresh peas, quinoa, a crunchy, almondy, parmesan crumbly thing pulling the whole beautiful, ribboned-like-pasta dish together. It’s fabulous. I eat every single scrap. And consider this: if I get up and walk out right now that’s actually 10/10. It was only four quid as well.

But d’uh, to spread the risk I ordered half a dozen things, thereby not only catching the waiter off-guard but leaving me wondering how he was going to remember it all – without a notebook, that is. The answer arrives shortly. I asked for potato, paneer and spinach curry: I get… coconut panisse, eggplant, romesco and pickled cauliflower. To be fair, my wife says I’m a terrible mumbler. To be even fairer, those puffy little French fried chickpea squares are