HIGH STEAKS
WORDS THE MYSTERY DINER ILLUSTRATION BOB DEWAR
The Champany Inn near Linlithgow serves up steaks in stylish surroundings
Running a restaurant is not unlike running a theatre. There are many moving parts and if any one of them fails the entire production can be ruined. You might, accordingly, think keeping matters as simple as possible is a safe bet. But this is a mistaken assumption. Simplicity reduces any margin for error. There are no allowances to be made.
I mean, a steakhouse is rarely likely to be the kind of place in which you are startled by the food. You won’t find yourself thinking ‘This is great, I’d love to be able to cook it myself ’. There’s very little that you could not do yourself at home. If you have a good butcher, a decent grill pan and just a little experience you can cook every bit as well as even the fanciest steakhouse kitchen.
So a steakhouse needs to be about more than just the food. Perhaps that’s why so many of them try to be all manly and macho and ‘in your face’, forever bragging about the size of their, er, steaks.
The Champany Inn just outside Linlithgow takes a different approach. It offers old-world charm and friendly service in an atmosphere of relaxed excellence. It is the opposite of in-yourface dining, making few concessions to fashion. You suspect Anne and Clive Davidson, the longtime proprietors, are enthusiastic supporters of the old adage that form is temporary but class is permanent. They have a point, too.
It is a homely place, the product of more than 30 years of experience. The main dining room is a circular converted byre. Portraits of Victorian gentlemen and their wives line the walls beneath a hexagonal wooden roof. The furniture is dark. There are candles. It all produces the curious sensation of dining in a comfortable country house within a sheepfold beneath a wigwam. But it works.
A starter of triple-smoked Aberdeen Angus carpaccio arrived swimming in more olive oil than was strictly necessary and, in any case,