Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
City keeps getting cooler
THERE are two types of people. Those who still think of Dundee as the poor relation and those who have been here in the last five years.
And even that first camp with bummer vibes, have heard the news.
That Dundee is brilliant.
Yes, I know, I’ve said this before, many times.
It’s the exception I make to repeating columns, for the story is ongoing and it’s one we like to hear.
Like most of us, I’m a cheerleader for our city. I feel slighted when it’s knocked; pride when it shines.
But now, there is no debate over how well or not we are doing, for news has landed that, finally – wait for it – a Wagamama restaurant is coming to town.
I am a fan of the British chain specialising in Asian and particularly Japanese cuisine, but with a more universal and generally delicious theme.
As soon as I hear I’ve got work in Glasgow, I’m calculating if I can make it to the city centre branch for steamed chicken gyoza and slurpy noodles or a katsu curry.
If you’ve not been before and it doesn’t sound like it will blow your hair back, trust me, give the restaurant that is opening beside Tony Macaroni – which is also brilliant – a go.
Anyway, enough of Wagamama. It’s what the imminent arrival means for Dundee that shows the bigger picture.
A Facebook campaign was started seven or so years ago to land one in the city, pointing out our billion-pound waterfront redevelopment.
But such an establishment was seen as the domain of our sleeker, more salubrious cousins Edinburgh and Glasgow.
But in those intervening years, we’ve chipped away, steadily, gaining V&A Dundee, Malmaison, award-winning restaurants and cookery schools and something less definable – a feeling, a movement, an energy.
We have bucked the
downward trend of high streets by landing a wealthy and experienced buyer in Frasers Group, led my Mike Ashley, to regenerate the Overgate shopping centre.
Wandering city centres as I often do for work on Homes Under the Hammer, I see the
gaping, empty spaces left by the likes of Debenhams on almost every high street the length and breadth of the UK.
While we are not immune to the problems of empty shops or needless planning department obstacles, we are in better shape than most cities.
That we may be able to sample a perfume and feel the fabrics of clothes on rails, things taken for granted until recent years, feels strangely giddy.
Closer to home, Aberdeen’s city centre looks heartbreakingly sad in parts and Perth at times seems on its knees.
But Dundee, our Dundee, is not just having its moment. It keeps having many moments. It is sustaining its success.
If all the cities were invited to a wedding and each personified as a guest – Glasgow would be head to toe in Versace, Edinburgh old school in fascinator and flowing frock.
But as Dundee came in, breaths would be held as we sashayed to our pew.
For that wee cousin always slightly overlooked and the butt of many jokes had flourished and was doing its own thing.
Against the odds, it has become the coolest kid in town.