Chequers

283 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow

0141 230 9067

Lunch/Dinner: £12.95-£45

Food rating: 5/10

SEASONING food properly and finishing dishes off well are defining characteristics of a good cook. A piece of beef cremated on the barbecue and served with sugary ketchup, will certainly mug your taste buds but it’s a crass, urgent effort compared to tiers of flavour patiently built up to create a finished whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

Domestic cooks following traditional culinary principles learn these skills subconsciously. A faithful Italian risotto, for instance, requires the right sort of rice, a patiently made rich meat broth, an appropriate wine, and just before serving, a judicious amount of salty, matured cheese and a nob of mellow butter to round the whole thing off. Cut corners with stock cubes or par-cooked rice if you like, but your risotto just won’t taste the same.

Restaurants chefs work differently. Their art revolves around last-minute operations, the swift assembly of previously prepared ingredients, hand-in-hand with rapid cooking from raw. Great restaurants distinguish themselves from merely ordinary ones by the amount of effort and chef time that goes into that preparation of each element.

In the new Chequers Bar and Grill in Glasgow, just one dish seemed to me to have any such carefully constructed complexity. Three Isle of Mull scallops weren’t confidently seared, more sweated or sizzled, and judging from the grit, one didn't seem to have been thoroughly cleaned. Yet their sauce (a red pepper bisque that I subsequently learnt was made using stock from langoustine carapaces) was interesting enough to distract from that. A spoonful of “caviar”, which, given the non-premium price tag on this dish I take to be lumpfish roe, and the odd speck of preserved lemon, layered on further taste dimensions.

No-one seems to have proof-read the menu at Chequers. Oysters come with “Tobacco” rather than Tabasco. “Place” comes from “Peter Head”). Unfortunately, I’d have to place the chickpea and spinach “pate” (sic), which should probably have read as “patty”, at the bottom end of the spectrum that runs from excitement to mind-numbing boredom. In appearance, it reminded me of those fast food chain "Fillet-O-Fish”. Under-seasoned, dry, with no obvious spinach, sandwiched burger-style with overpowering red onion and furry-textured tomatoes in a leaden bun, my jaws rebelled at the effort of eating it. I fought an urge to get the chef out the kitchen and ask him or her: “Would you really enjoy eating this?” I most definitely didn’t. OK, at £8.95 with a pile of skinny fries, this wasn’t an expensive dish, but I’d rather pay more and get “basil mayonnaise” that had patently fresh basil in it, not flecks of tasteless khaki. Dried basil perhaps? If so, why bother?

Yellowing leaves and wilting stems accompanying a steak suggested a follow-up question: “Do you think this watercress is fresh?” No-one front or back of house seemed to have noticed that it clearly wasn’t. Neither attractive to look at nor enticingly edible, perhaps my mistake was imagining that anyone seriously expected me to eat it. The rib-eye itself seemed entirely innocent of seasoning, and was barbecue-in-the-back-garden burnt rather than capably grilled. Any more reduction and its red wine jus would have tasted like acidic treacle. With a price tag of £25, this was a dish that delivered a healthy profit margin yet required minimal chef effort.

Middling dishes included ham hock terrine that needed more fat to help it stick together and better bread to eat it with, dispiritingly plain roast beetroot with dry flaked almonds that again needed seasoning and also anointing with oil, pomegranate molasses, or something. Hand-cut chips, oddly arid and mealy in texture, were less appealing than they sounded.

Sour apple sorbet, which actually tasted of fresh tart apples, not just sugar, made a welcome palate cleanser after the weightiness of the savoury courses. A thick wedge of rough-textured dark chocolate tart was more of a rib-sticker, and judging from the base, its pastry case needed longer in the oven.

I overheard our waitress explaining to a table of tourists that Chequers prides itself in serving fresh Scottish food. I hope they figured out that Scotland can do better than this.