Hotel nosh not worth shelling out for
Anna underwhelmed and out of pocket
Glasgow’s Hilton hotel, poking into the skyline between Charing Cross and the Kingston Bridge, is not a known fine dining venue.
Most people – including guests at the hotel – go west to Finnieston or carry on east into town.
In an attempt to stop all this delicious cash walking out the door, the Hilton has done up its dining room and rebranded it as Tart & Lobster. It now looks like a bland new hotel restaurant rather than a tired old one.
The menu is heavy on tarts and lobsters, which pleases my pedantic side but worries my business brain.
Is there a great unmet demand for pastry and pricey crustaceans? Apart from Greggs vegan steak bakes on launch day, I’m not aware of a massive groundswell of support for pies, flans and luxury seafood.
I went along on a Friday night – it’s only open in the evening at weekends – thinking that the Hilton probably knows more about this stuff than I do.
Two glasses of fizz arrived, unbidden. When I challenged this, the waitress assured me that they were also complementary. Sweet gesture, but what kind of restaurant is giving away booze on what should be a peak night?
Persuading Carb Boy to order a pie is never difficult. At one memorable birthday dinner he requested a different pie for every course.
Three pies to be shared between two at a slightly reduced price of £21 the lot was the obvious place to start. They arrived all at once, on huge glazed plates that took up most of the table.
I took the lobster and butternut squash first, in case Carb Boy lost control and ate the lot. The filling was substantial and pleasant, playing to the sweet notes in lobster flesh. But the tart was filo pastry rather than the expected shortcrust – greasy on the bottom, over crispy round the edges and extremely hard to cut.
The other two tarts – spicy shredded duck and fig with brie – had the same construction. I struggled to slice each one.
When you pitch yourself as a swanky date night venue, it makes sense to serve food it’s possible to eat without embarrassment. The duck filling was good, shredded and spiced, with orangey bits in the garnish to cut through the dense, rich meat. The brie was less successful, topped with anaemic, out of season figs. The pastry construction let them all down.
Next, obviously, lobster. I had mine straight with garlic butter. This costs £29.50, including one side from a quite random selection. Could I have a regular side salad instead of a Caesar salad? I was assured I could. The Caesar salad that arrived was eventually replaced with a small bowl of mixed leaves, raw red onion and overpowering dressing.
The lobster was a meaty specimen, well cooked and easy
to prise from its shell. The scary implements to do this were all present and correct but a finger bowl would have been welcome.
Carb Boy had lobster in tortellini, fat pasta parcels floating in an intense seafood bisque. He is never unhappy eating pasta, luxury crustacean or soup, so put the three together and he is winning at life. The only thing missing was a spoon to eat it with.
His dessert, billed as apple crumble, was one of these trompe l’oeil numbers that are all the rage. It looked like a Granny
Smith but was actually a white chocolate mousse with apple matter in the middle, on a bed of crumbs. I’m not sure apple and white chocolate are the best of friends but it’s hard to argue with that level of cute. My cheeseboard arrived on a trolley, served by an anxious
young man who didn’t seem wildly confident with all his fiddly implements.
It was not the most ambitious or exciting selection but they were all at the right temperature and the addition of Italian truffle honey makes everything alright.
More unordered wines arrived. These, the waitress told us, were dessert wines. Designed to be drunk with desserts. She had never heard of such a thing before and was excited to share her discovery.
The Hilton should be doing better. When I pay three figures for dinner, without drinks, I expect a sommelier, not a waitress who has never encountered a sweet wine in her puff. I want to be able to cut my tart, get the correct salad with my lobster and not have a mistake in the bill.
Tart & Lobster must be clearer about what it’s trying to do and train staff accordingly. Do they want to be Crabshakk or the Strathearn dining room at Gleneagles? At the moment, it’s an unsatisfactory and overpriced hybrid of both.