THE GREAT SURVIVOR

The Mystery Diner finds that nothing keeps a great chef like Nick Nairn down

Who on earth would want to be a restaurateur just now? Not me, that’s for absolutely sure.

With the possible exception of nightclub owners, few people have been harder hit by the economic ravages of the pandemic than those sturdy entrepreneurs who have mortgaged their homes for the right to employ our feckless kids as waiters and to work crazy hours satifying our culinary whims.

Since March 2020, it’s been hard to watch as restaurant after beloved restaurant has bitten the dust, their distraught owners no longer able to withstand the twin pressures of no income and ongoing outgoings.

Some lucky souls, however, have scope to adapt their business model, and one of them is Nick Nairn. The well-known Stirlingshire chef has repurposed his Cook School at Port of Menteith, putting tables inside, erecting a large gazebo and hurriedly landscaping the area outside so that he can seat customers when the sun shines. Altogether he can seat over a hundred people, and thankfully the sun has shone on the crazy diamond this summer.

Not that it’s been easy. In the early summer a whole floor of the cook school collapsed thanks to a burst pipe. And just when that looked to have been fixed (at vast expense) one of the kitchen staff at his eponymous Bridge of Allan restaurant was struck down by Covid, which meant that the whole staff was pinged and unable to work.

So far so chaotic, but it will take more than a flood and a biblical plague to stop a trouper like Nairn in his tracks. Even a chronic lack of serving staff was overcome by a mix of dragooning friends and family into help and then applying the lash, while Nairn himself ran the show from the kitchen nerve centre.

As we arrived, the degree to which plates were being frenetically spun was revealed when the kitchen door swung open in front of us and a red-faced Nairn charged out, plates in hand. The blast of hot air which followed him out of the kitchen was like dragon’s breath; no wonder the customers got to see his pipe cleaner legs beneath baggy shorts.

We were quickly shown to our table out in the newly-landscaped garden, where we had a wonderful view over a wildflower meadow and the rolling Stirlingshire hills behind. It was during that gloriously hot spell, and as the sun blazed down in the early evening we relaxed and took in the scene. While the customers chilled out we watched as the staff beavered away, their non-stop movement reminding us of just what a hard gig this is.

Yet it’s also true that Nairn wants our business,

not our charity, and that we are duty bound to judge him on the content of his work, not his character or fortitude or ability to thumb his nose at economic headwinds, no matter how laudable. So what of his new venture?

Certainly the setting was serene, and the menu promised his usual mix of relaxed but classic dishes produced with elan and simple clean lines. In many ways it was an almost gastropub-style menu in which the magic was in the execution rather than the imagination.

This is the perfect place to come for a relaxed family meal, but we stayed clear of the list of 13 pizzas, tempting though the descriptions were. Instead, from the inviting list of ten starters we opted for two simple dishes of beetroot hummus and ceviche mackerel, although I’d have happily gone for virtually any of the other options.

Both our starters were sumptuous success stories, with the mix of ceviche mackerel with avocado and pickled cucumber drawing grunts of appreciation. Despite being bright purple, the hummus could have been more beetrooty, and there could have been more of it, but served with whipped feta and seasoned with freshly-made dukkha, and lathered onto warm flatbread, it was a perfect accompaniment to the beating sun.

There were only four main courses, and again I would have happily chosen any of them. We eventually settled on the steak frites and seafood linguine, two simple dishes flawlessly presented. The bavette was perfectly cooked and so tender it

“The setting was serene, the food simple classics produced with elan

could be cut with a fork; it also came with skinny fries. The seafood linguine was outstanding and topped with two split langoustines – exactly my kind of food.

For pudding we couldn’t make up our minds so ended up having a dessert each and sharing a third novelty dish. Again, these were gastropub staples, but nicely excuted. The chocolate pot was gloriously rich and cloying and had me scraping the bottom of the bowl in an attempt to prolong the experience, while the orange and almond tart was joyously full of lovely spongey moistness. Our curiosity had been piqued by another pudding – the grapefruit posset – which we eventually (and rightly) concluded was an emergency measure due to a lack of lemons. The courage to go the whole hog had deserted our host and it tasted rather like a lemon posset would if it was stripped of most of its flavouring. It still had an enjoyably velveteen texture, just without the fruity tang that gives the dish its distinctive taste.

Yet that was as bad as it got. The man survives a flood, an outbreak of Covid and staff shortages – and, like virtually all of his peers, has probably lost money hand-over-fist for months on end – and the worst we can say about the meal he has prepared is that a fruity pudding should have been fruitier.

Thank goodness for hardy economic adventurers like Nairn – they deserve our admiration and, above all, our support.