I first met Craig Grozier while he was chef-patron of Heart Buchanan, the late, lamented deli in Glasgow’s west end, and admired his pioneering love of foraging and using local ingredients in an intelligent and deeply flavoursome way. Since then he’s launched his own Glasgow-based private dining company Fallachan, working with the likes of The Botanist on Islay, The Principal's Lodgings at Glasgow University, Sorn Dining, Galloway Wild Foods and a host of international clients. (When I wrote about his new creation of Hare’s Blood Custard for The Herald in 2015, the story went viral.)
Now he’s collaborating with his friend, the Falkirk-born chef James Murray (ex Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Nurdin Topham’s Nur in Hong Kong and most recently head chef at the Edinburgh Food Studio) on the launch of Fallachan Cart, a more casual menu influenced by the pair’s global street food experiences. Their first menus will be served later this week when they take over the kitchen at The Gate neighbourhood bar in the Gallowgate, in Glasgow’s East End (see photo below), for a three-week pop-up. (The Gate, owned since July last year by drinks consultant Andy Gemmell, has been in existence for 200 years. It sits across from the Barrowland Ballroom and, according to the whisky writer Dave Broom, joins the Ben Nevis in Finnieston, The Lismore in Partick and the Pot Still and Bon Accord in the city centre as one of the city’s “great whisky pubs”. Having a food offer such as Fallachan Cart’s “next level street food” alongside pints of Tennents, local craft beers and high-end cocktails was, says Andy Gemmell, is about “introducing something new, taking people out of their comfort zone, while also giving them something they want”. His clientele is an interesting mix of “old Glasgow” traders from the Barras market, and artists and students from Wasps Studios, producers from The Glasgow Collective, and musicians and music lovers from the Barrowlands and nearby St Luke’s.
This is an intruiging development in the food scene, given that both high-end chefs are entering new territory. I’m interrested to know if working this way is set to be the “new normal” for them - and others.
We meet in the West End during a break in prep for the imminent launch, and it’s an aural experience I won’t forget. The friends’ non-stop trip-up banter is an electrifying exchange of culinary ideas, challenges, solutions, cautions, jocular threats, high-fives and laughter. It seems to me that such manifest competitiveness is natural for two such creative and experienced talents - and it’s a pleasure to behold.
What I get from our short, if intense, time together is the pair’s unbridled euphoria at finally having a project to work on after four months of lockdown and the devastating shut-down of the hospitality sector; at years of combined professional experience now being distilled into new - and affordable - flavour-led dishes.
I’m also struck by the realisation of just how difficult lockdown has been for freelance chefs like them who’ve had nowhere to work, no customers to cook for, and no real incentive to get out of bed in the morning. Their suppressed creativity has now found an outlet and it appears their ability to be nimble, fleet of foot, flexible, call it what you will, is paying off.
“Fallachan Dining was doing really well and it had been growing exponentially over eight years to be crazy busy all year round. But I’ve lost what amounts to a year’s bookings due to the virus,” says Grozier. “Launching a street food concept is about trying to keep going in these challenging times. You have to move with what’s happening. You can either stay at home and cry, or you decide to re-invent yourself.
“We chefs are resilient, hard-working creatures. Neither of us are wired to sit still and do nothing.”
Murray, who left Edinburgh Food Studio when it closed in part due to lockdown last month, agrees. “Right now it’s all about staying relevant, being around the scene, still producing something,” he says. “Fallachan Cart is about going with the times. People are interested in affordable, tasty food made by chefs they know and trust.”
Grozier’s culinary travels to France, South America and Japan, and Murray’s to Europe, Asia and the US, have influenced the dishes while Scottish-sourced ingredients are used where possible. They have been meticulously R&D’d during lockdown, and both chefs hope they’ll appeal to the Gate’s food-savvy customers – many of whom, having been cooking at home during lockdown, will have a new appreciation of what goes into restaurant-quality dishes, but at just £20 a head.
The menus, served over two different weeks (the third menu is still in development) involve intense technical detail – and much hard graft (continues).
Grozier’s selection of handmade Bao buns (above) - light, fluffy steamed wheat flour dumplings made with sweet milk dough, based on the classic Chinese recipe - will be served with a range of his own fillings. Handmade artisan Thai sausage using Scottish pork belly and the whole animal; smoked Scottish haddock with Grozier’s new signature velvet crab mayo (“It’s outrageous and I’m super-pleased with it,” he says); Glasgow chips served with his own Tennents vinegar. The buns themselves are flavoured with Pondicherry spices (a mix classic French ingredients with the seven Indian spices), fermented chilli, or served plain. (Continues.)
Murray’s own JFC (Jimmy’s Fried Chicken) dish (above) sounds like a clever way to raise the ethical, sustainable and quality standards of an otherwise industrially-sourced, mass-produced, cheap take-away. His own dish, based on a South Korean recipe, uses organic chicken and the whole bird is mined for its breast meat, legs, wings, fat, skin and stock. He uses two of own-label Jarred glazes – spicy and sweet – and serves it with his own spiced red onion, fennel and parsley pickle and a “spicy, delicious” aioli.
“I hope to raise the both the standard and the public expectation of what fried chicken can be,” he says.
Looking to the future, Grozier intends to keep both Fallachan Dining and Fallachan Cart going, possibly as a supper club at The Gate, while James is looking to have his own restaurant and shop.
“I reckon it’s now about creating a sustainable business that feeds the young and the old in a local neighbourhood setting and at an accessible price-point, but which also has a strong online presence,” he says. His online shop will sell Jarred Pantry, his own-label range of pickles, ferments and wild foods. “After the pandemic experience, I reckon putting all your eggs in one basket and relying on all your revenue coming from bums-on-seats will no longer be sustainable.”
More immediately, the exchange of ideas for the Fallachan Cart pop-up continues unabated.
Do they think diners will appreciate the diligence, professionalism, experience, global techniques and layer upon layer of flavour that go into their new dishes?
The conversation suddenly stops. “Well, we bloody well hope so!” they chorus, slamming down their empty espresso cups and racing each other back to the prep kitchen where 72 organic chickens and 750 Bao buns in the making await them.
Fallachan Cart’s three-week kitchen takeover of The Gate runs from August 6-8, then August 13-15 and August 20-22. Visit Dark Kitchen at www.thegateglasgow.com
