The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Neighbourhood favourite Hovers between slick designer bar and old-time village hotel
ATUESDAY night in Bridge of Allan. Winter gripping, rain penetrating, a soupy darkness all around. A waiter suddenly standing at our table solemnly delivering the latest unsettling news from the crumbling world.
Heads turn, faces tilt…dum, dum, dum. Sorry, guys: we’ve run out of crispy baby squid.
What? No. It’s only turned 7pm. Brexit, Covid, Putin? Apparently none of the above.
Just people. A surprising number of them in here this early in the week, drinks bobbing, plates travelling, locals, I’m assuming, of all ages, shapes and sizes.
Pretty much exactly what every former village hotel turned meze-stroke-cocktailsstroke-flatbread-stroke-pork-tomahawksteaks-stroke-small-plates with a very posh off licence attached wants.
Whether the staff saw this mini-rush coming tonight I can’t rightly say, but at times it looks like the chef’s out serving tables, the barman’s nailing food orders and the fat food critic here will have to prise himself out of this corner table first to grab someone to place the order and then to pin someone down to pay the bill. Hands waved, eyes tried to lock, but frankly they’re just very busy.
Anyway, the history of the Queen’s House is so fresh, the opening so recent, that all of it, including how much it was on sale for, planning applications, and various previous attempts to make a go of this tricky site, right beside Nick Nairn’s currently lightly toasted and therefore completely shut joint, are still writ large all over page 1 of Google.
Read it and weep: such are the dreams of the everyday restaurateur. Not an easy life.
More importantly: there’s monkfish, the waiter tells us. To replace those squid. And…spiced cod fritters (two portions, please), grilled broccolini, charred heritage carrots (uh?), char-grilled chicken, lamb kofta, globe couscous tabouleh and, once we’ve finished most of this, we’ll party on by ordering up one of those Queen’s House flatbreads.
It arrives late to the meal on a long wooden paddle, very thin, nicely baked, slightly crispy, carrying the house combo of chorizo, honey, guindilla chillies, mozzarella and umm: pineapple. You know what? It cracks as it’s sliced, it’s alternatively lightly doughy, satisfyingly crunchy and therefore tastes freshly baked as it goes down. Four of us have a couple of pieces each and then do that fake polite noyou-have-it fight over the last bit. A winner.
Nobody’s that keen to fight over the last of the heritage (aka different colours) notvery-charred carrots in tahini and toasted almonds. That’s because they haven’t made the leap from bog standard carrot to caramelised sweetness. But Luca, who wandered down from the uni to meet us tonight, eventually does the honours.
Next: juicy lamb kofta in a tangy, herby dressing are pretty much devoured, those spiced cod fritters are easy and light finger food, the grilled chicken with turmeric and garlic turns out to be delicately textured and flavoured and the monkfish too are all eaten.
The broccolini? You’ll recognise these very-much-in fashion dudes, skinny, irongreen, grilled with garlic and lemon. Always refreshing, occasionally woody, but plate cleared. Before we know it we’ve eaten everything except for that globe couscous tabouleh. Now, no amount of urging will persuade anyone, not even my student son, to finish off the last third of this very small bowl of salad. Maybe it’s just too cold out
there for sticky gloopy stuff? Maybe this is really nothing more than a garnish and not a £6 meze? Or perhaps it should have a lot, lot more fresh herb in it to counter those big, gooey textured cous-cous that kinda feel a bit porrdgey. There are attractive-looking spatchcock chicken being delivered to the table adjacent to us, a whole luce bay bream on the grill section of the menu. Maybe I could have ordered better. But it would be wrong to infer that this meal hasn’t been satisfying; this restaurant-cum-bar is a comfortable place to be.
If you know a restaurant Ron should review, email ronmackenna@me.com