Fancy mall outlet needs more food for thought
Anna’s not wild about shopping centre dining
Ihave so many memories of taking my first baby to the St James Centre in Edinburgh. Parking on the weird rooftop car park and not being able to find my way to the shops. Sweating like a bear while carrying her in a sling. Taking her complicated pram back to John Lewis for my third lesson in how to fold it up without bursting into tears.
Now the gloomy brutalist concrete has been replaced with the glittering walnut whip that is St James Quarter.
The floods that made the opening week such a washout were gone, the sun shone through the vast expanses of glass and there were no queues.
It seemed the ideal place to meet Old Chum, who has an adorable three-month-old baby. What malls lack in urban charm they make up for in lifts, wide open spaces and plentiful room for prams.
We wheeled him into Bonnie & Wild, one of several areas dedicated to eating and drinking. (There is also a row of cool food trucks on Leith Street plus a Krispy Kreme and Five Guys elsewhere within the centre and the promise of more to come.)
Bonnie & Wild is “a Scottish marketplace”. I can imagine planning meetings where anyone who called it a food court would get their head in their hands to play with. It is so upmarket that the fourth floor is hardly high enough.
Like the traditional food court, however, there are lots of outlets offering different things to eat. Instead of baked potatoes and slushies, we considered MasterChef winner Gary MacLean’s langoustines, East’s sourdough pizzas and Erpington House’s bowls of expensive vegetables.
Two bars provide the lubrication and drinks can be summoned from the table via a QR code. Food is ordered at the individual units, then delivered as if by magic when an electronic pinger starts buzzing.
It’s all very modern and technology dependent. When Old Chum joined the queues just after it opened, the staff were terrified
out of their wits. All was calm on her return visit. We had a preliminary wander, where I noticed a few west coast stars had made this their base in the east.
Jimmy’s Salt and Chilli Oriental did not appeal but the Gannet, one of the first fine dining restaurants to set up in Finnieston, is an old favourite. We parked the buggy and waited to be thrilled.
The starters certainly sounded exciting – they had us at Arbroath smokie donuts.
But these were not something Homer Simpson would recognise, just round, deep-fried fish cakes with pretty swirls of pickled cucumber on top.
We liked them, although a dipping sauce of some sort would have been welcome. But they failed to live up to their sizzly name and if they hadn’t been billed as donuts, might well have passed.
Celeriac tacos with apple and whey cheese sounded wholesome and healthy for a breastfeeding mother.
But I’m not convinced that the watery root, even when it’s expertly roasted, is the ideal topping for a crunchy corn disc. These were not memorable.
The mains were a more cheering prospect.
Sea trout with celery and more apple was interesting rather than scrape-the-bowl sumptuous.
The fish had blistered, crispy skin and was lightly cooked. The apple and celery sauce was fruitier than I would have put with a sweet, oily fish like trout. It could also have used a stodgy element to make use of the liquid but we didn’t think to order bread or – our loss – marrowbone mash, and no one suggested it.
By the time all the food arrived, it was too late.
The whole plaice, a huge angular fella spilling off his plate, was the star of the meal. He came smothered in a summery butter sauce studded with peas and elderflower.
Hand on heart, I could not identify the delicate floral note but I’m happy to believe that it added fragrance and sweetness to an already excellent dish.
A whole fish on the bone is not the easiest thing to eat with a baby latched on but, with teamwork and a strategically placed muslin cloth, we pulled it off.
The Gannet’s only dessert, caramel fondant, was not what we fancied.
To find an alternative, I had to walk to the entrance of Bonnie & Wild and buy coffee and cakes from another Glaswegian business, Broken Clock.
I then had to transport a fig tart and a glossy ball of tangerine, white chocolate and hazelnut decadence back to our table in one piece.
That level of DIY is not what I expect at swishy restaurant prices and it seems crazy to have booze and soft drinks available via QR code but not coffee.
This place might be bonnie but I’m not wild about it.