Meet the team stepping up to the plate to save the planet one dish at a time ahead of COP26

Exclusive

Hundreds of COP26 attendees from around the globe are expected to descend on Glasgow next month, and are already booking tables at hospitality venues whose menus prioritise hyper-local, high-welfare, ethical and sustainable food and drink experiences from those independents not tied to the central buying policies of the larger hospitality groups. In other words, they are thronging to exactly the venues participating in the Plate Up For Glasgow campaign launching on October 12 and running throughout COP26. Read on …

[Pictured below are the team behind the progressive pilot campaign: L-R Rebecca Ricketts, Campaign Lead for Plate up for Glasgow; Craig Martin, Experience Glasgow; Giovanna Eusebi Eusebi Restaurant and Deli; Alison McRae, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce.]

Fancy a sour beer made with surplus supermarket bread and parts of fruit and vegetables that normally go unused, blended with small-batch home-grown hops? It’s being made by the innovative Drygate Brewery in Glasgow and when ready it’ll be given the brilliant name of Spare Parts. The new sour will be served at Drygate, together with a zero-waste menu, during the inaugural Plate Up For Glasgow pilot food waste campaign launching on October 12 and running throughout COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, until November 12 inclusive. The beer will be kegged and given free to 35+ participating restaurants, cafes and bars city-wide in return for donations to the Trussell Trust food bank charity.

From the other side of town Eusebi Restaurant & Deli head chef Seb Wereski has created a stunning salad of humble cauliflower, deconstructed and rethought to use every bit of it including the flower, leaves and stalk. It was topped with crispy leaves and house Mossgiel milk ricotta – whose whey is also used in the salad dressing. This zero-waste dish will be on the menu throughout the pilot Plate Up For Glasgow campaign, the first of its kind for Scotland, designed to address food waste and its impact on climate change.

At the campaign launch, hosted by Drygate - where nine of the 35­­+ were cooking - innovation and commitment to the cause were evident. I must say it’s the first time I’ve witnessed such a collaborative, unified and visible stand against climate change from the city’s hospitality industry. Sprigg, Bowl, Broken Pony, Riverhill Coffee Bar, The Duke’s Umbrella, the Gate and The Finnieston also came up with delicious ideas that illustrated how possible it is to eat and drink sustainably, affordably and well, while helping save the planet one dish at a time (actually, that last bit is the campaign’s own slogan). Pictured above are the chefs from the night: L-R Frazer McGonigle (Broken Pony); Tom McDermott (Sprigg); Seb Wereski (Eusebi Restaurant and Deli); John Molloy (The Duke's Umbrella); Colin Campbell (Bowl); Lewis Benett (Sprigg); Jake Walters (Drygate).

Now other top participating venues have been revealed and include Alston Bar and Beef, Bar Brett, Café Gandolfi, Crab Shakk, Five March, the Gannet, Glaschu, Ka Pao, Mono, Ox and Finch, Porter & Rye, the Prancing Stag, and Ziques.

This hospitality-led pilot initiative, specifically scheduled to coincide with COP26, is backed by Glasgow Chamber of Commerce through its Circular Glasgow initiative, in partnership with Eusebi Restaurant and Deli and Experience Glasgow Food and Drink. It will see menus offering a range of sustainable Food Hero dishes and drinks, all designed to showcase at least one of four food waste reduction techniques – sourcing locally and rethinking existing menu items; showcasing food preservation techniques such as pickling, dehydrating and fermenting; using unfashionable cuts of meat and the whole animal; and/or creating a dish from surplus or donated food - challenging traditional and wasteful dining and takeaway business models with the goal of sending as little organic waste as possible to landfill.

A shocking one-third of food waste is still being binned and ends up as landfill every year, costing the Scottish hospitality industry £212m in landfill taxes. More pressingly perhaps is the fact that the process of layering waste creates methane, which has a global warming potential 21 times greater than carbon dioxide. Thus food waste is recognised as contributing more to climate change than plastics.

So the Plate Up For Glasgow campaign is timely, given Glasgow’s commitment to becoming carbon-neutral by 2023 – in addition to the small matter of it being due to host COP26 within days.

I mentioned in my previous post (about the Veg Cities Chefs’ Challenge in Glasgow) that in addition to the 100+ world leaders due to attend COP26 - and whose catering needs will be provided within the secure Scottish Events Campus - it’s anticipated that hundreds of COP26 attendees from around the globe are expected to descend on Glasgow next month, and are already booking tables at hospitality venues whose menues prioritise hyper-local, high-welfare, ethical and sustainable food and drink experiences from those independent outlets who are not tied to the central buying policies of the larger hospitality groups. In other words, exactly the venues participating in the Plate Up campaign.

Rebecca Ricketts, Campaign Lead for Plate Up For Glasgow, said: “Food waste currently costs the Scottish hospitality industry approximately £212 million annually and is recognised to be a bigger cause of climate change than plastics. Through Plate up for Glasgow we hope to bring the industry together … learning collaboratively how to become sustainable and profitable for the future.”

So the challenge has been set. Now it’s up to consumers and diners. And if successful, will the rest of Scotland join in?

* Applications to join the campaign are open until October 22, and reservations for diners can be made via https://plateupforglasgow.co.uk/book-now/

“There is real growth in the number of brilliant gardens and growing spaces": Glasgow's culinary resurgence as the Dear Green Place takes root ahead of COP26

*Exclusive*

In the (well-ventilated) open air in the East End of Glasgow I’m observing three city chefs demonstrate their ability to overcome the vagaries of cooking out of doors while creating winning tasty and attractive seasonal vegetable-centred dishes. The fresh, locally-grown produce they get to play with is simply stunning – and enough to surprise anyone still unaware of Glasgow’s resurgent culinary image as the Dear Green Place.

We’re in the fourth year of the Veg Cities Chefs’ Challenge and the three finalists, shortlisted from an initial 14 entrants from restaurants, delis and cafes across the city after judging visits, cook on barbecues and open fires with fresh produce supplied in a ‘mystery’ box of donations from seven of Glasgow’s numerous - and burgeoning - community and market gardens. Not everything is char-grilled: the chefs pickle, steam, boil, roast, fry, bake and marinate too. The produce was in the ground just hours before being prepared.

Chef Niall Allan of Sprigg in the city centre is busy putting together an autumn salad (left) of lightly pickled Black Futsu squash slices topped with squash cubes parmentier-style, green tomatoes, gently barbecued fresh apple slices straight from the tree and oven-roast baby turnips finished on the barbecue all served in a light Glasgow honey dressing.

Beside him Jamie MacDonald of La Bonne Auberge is creating two dishes: a half squash filled with sauteed swede, broccoli, rice infused with pickled fennel seed and garnished with pickled radish (right), watercress, dill; and a flatbread spread with a mooli and apple remoulade with wholegrain mustard and lovage topped with a salad of roasted tomato, apple, brocolli.

Meanwhile John Traynor of La Pastina deli whips up no fewer than three dishes: barbecue courgette flowers stuffed with turnip (left), green tomato and with lovage verdie dressing; broccoli and beet burnt ends, raw radish; and carpaccio of pumpkin and apple with pickled fennel seeds and geranium leaves (below).

But the Glasgow Chefs’ Challenge is more than just a story about cooking gorgeous, often surprising, hyper-fresh local produce in the open air. It’s about showing what can be grown here in this city - notorious for its poor diet-related health stats - to put vegetables on a par with meat and fish on the plate, whether prepared at home or in a café or restaurant. Which is why I’ve been a supporter since its inception.

Its importance is especially heightened this year as Glasgow prepares to host COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in November.

The inaugural competitions in 2018 and 2019 were held in the City of Glasgow College and 19 chefs from some of Glasgow’s top independent restaurants got to cook on professional stoves. But times, as we all know, have changed and this year’s, as last year’s, live cook-off was held out of doors in the newly-named Wash House Garden in Tollcross in the city’s east end. I love the new name (it was formerly Greenheart Growers) as it echoes the site’s original purpose as the communal washing green for the adjacent former steamie once used by residents of the tenements in the area.

Moving the cook-off to this progressive and highly productive community site speaks to the current zeitgeist of angst about climate change, food insecurity, empty supermarket shelves, price hikes and other food issues post-Brexit and the pandemic.

Cooking on the same ground that the vegetables, fruits and herbs are grown in, with contributions from other community and market gardens from across the city, takes the competition to its very roots (pardon the pun). It highlights the potential of fresh, locally grown produce to deliver maximum nutritional benefits and affordable prices, reduce food miles, create a sustainable food system and boost the circular economy while contributing to the city’s commitment to being carbon-neutral by 2030.

Glasgow was actually the first Scottish city to rise to the Veg Cities Chefs’ Challenge (backed by celebrity chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver). The Glasgow competition is organised by the Glasgow Community Food Network (GCFN) in partnership with the UK-wide Sustainable Food Cities network, whose joint aim is to see citizens from across all sections of society get access to fresh local produce.

It runs concurrently with the Glasgow City Food Plan, the first of its kind in Scotland. Backed by Glasgow City Council and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board, among others, it aims to make healthy, affordable food accessible for everyone living and working in the city.

Glasgow currently has three market gardens, around 90 community gardens and growing spaces and 32 allotments sites. Organisers want more growing spaces on the city’s vacant and derelict land and for public services to buy and sell healthier and more sustainable food and support local businesses.

The Glasgow Veg Cities Chefs’ Challenge 2021 took place just weeks before the city hosts COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, when hundreds of global climate activists and campaigners could descend on the city and seek out hyper-local, high-welfare, ethical, sustainable and affordable food experiences, presumably from the smaller independent outlets who are not tied to the central buying policies of the larger hospitality groups.

People don’t think of Glasgow as somewhere you can grow superb, healthy fresh food that has zero food miles": Grant Reekie on the Glasgow Veg Cities Chefs' Challenge 2021

“Glasgow’s called the Dear Green Place, but people don’t think of it as somewhere you can grow superb, healthy fresh food that has zero food miles,” said the Glasgow Chefs’ Challenge organiser Grant Reekie (below left) of GCFN (who is also an MSc Gastronomy graduate from Queen Margaret University). “Springburn and Blackhill [donator gardens to the cook-off] and aren’t places naturally associated with gourmet ingredients, but we are out to prove how wrong that is.

“The whole point of the Chefs’ Challenge is to show what Glasgow is doing and how it’s possible for every citizen to eat more vegetables if we have enough land and resources to grow them and more shops, restaurants and cafes to sell them.

“We’ve noticed real growth in the number of brilliant gardens and growing spaces that contributed this year. The harvest donated was simply fantastic.”

He also adds that many chefs go on to source from those gardens allowed to sell produce commercially. When I asked if he’d like to see growth in the competition, he said: “We’d love to see markets like Patrick Farmers Market expanded out into every part of Glasgow as another way to get these locally grown vegetables onto dinner plates.”

The Wash House Garden is run by Max Johnson (above, right) who, in addition to organising a weekly veg box scheme and supplying local cafes with fresh produce, has built an events and workshop space. He aims to offer community meals and guest-chef pop-up restaurants for locals.

He worked tirelessly - and with matching enthusiasm - with Reekie to provide everything necessary for the competitors to produce top veg- and herb-centred dishes for the judges of whom I was one, along with Julie Lin, chef-patron of Julie’s Kopitiam Malaysian street food cafe in Shawlands, and Gary Maclean, Scotland’s national chef and executive chef at City of Glasgow College. Our remit was to mark on three criteria: veg-centredness, creativity and taste.

We were hugely impressed by the chefs’ skills in producing good-looking innovative dishes with flavour, texture, and colour. Chef MacDonald’s delicious baked squash dish almost tipped the balance but in the end, we plumped unanimously for chef Traynor’s courgette flower creation as the winner.

Stuffed not with ricotta or mascarpone or pine nuts, but with good old Glasgow turnip.

ENDS

The Three Judges: Gary Maclean samples Niall Allan’s autumn salad; Julie Lin picks some pak choi; and the three of us in the Wash House Garden before the cook-off begins!

Red meat: the bite-back begins!

Exclusive: A new collaboration between The Gannet restaurant and MacDuff Butcher- launching in Edinburgh on Wednesday August 11 - aims to build a closer direct relationship between consumers and where meat comes from, how it’s been reared - and how best to cook it. Taking place every Wednesday at the new St James’ Quarter, the bespoke service is the first of its kind in Scotland. Read on …

“We’re fans of fat”: Andrew Duff on the benefits of grass-fed beef

The idea of The Butcher’s Cut is that you visit the MacDuff Butcher counter - situated at Bonnie & Wild food marketplace on the fourth floor of Edinburgh’s new St James’ Quarter - discuss the choices on offer, and choose your cut of beef. The Gannet East restaurant – just five metres away - will then collect your meat and have it cooked to order for you by head chef John Munro and co-patron Ivan Stein (pictured below).

Initially the steaks on offer are a dry-aged flat iron, a MacDuff four-week dried rib-eye, and a “guest cut” of 11-year old Galician bone-in rib-eye.

John Munro, head chef at The Gannet East, and Ivan Stein, The Gannet’s co-patron, below

“To have a butcher’s counter right beside a restaurant is unusual and we believe this is the first bespoke service of its kind in Scotland,” said Andrew Duff, the 33-year-old great-grandson of MacDuff founder Peter Duff and the brains behind the bold new venture. “It is a truly unique experience for all of us. We’ve worked with The Gannet in Glasgow for several years and when we got the opportunity to do this with them at Bonnie & Wild it seemed a match made in heaven.”

The MacDuff Butcher counter is the first retail outlet for the 126-year-old Wishaw-based firm which, in addition to supplying independent butchers in London, also supplies some top-end restaurants such as The Little Chartroom, Café St Honore and L’escargot Bleu in Edinburgh, Unalome by Graeme Cheevers and Restaurant Eighty-Eight as well as The Gannet in Glasgow, and The Quality Chop House and Flat Iron in London. MacDuff sources only grass-fed cattle from a carefully curated network of dedicated small-scale farmers in Scotland. Its cutting room in Wishaw is Pasture for Life approved, as is the Wishaw abattoir next door.

Trying something like this in a shopping mall environment, albeit in the high-end food marketplace af the St James Quarter, is pretty brave given the - apparently - growing anti-meat movement. Will people go for it?

The MacDuff Butcher’s counter at Bonnie & Wild

“There’s a growing demand in the UK for a well-sourced, quality top-end product that people are willing to pay for,” Andrew Duff tells me. “One of the good things to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic is that it has spawned a greater appreciation, especially among the younger demographic, of the benefits of buying local, low-impact and high welfare produce.

“On top of that, Brexit has completely closed off our export market to the EU. That all led us to consider how we could develop the business for the growing home market.

“More people are beginning to realise that there are fantastic health benefits in Scotch grass fed meat such as higher levels of Omega 3 and Vitamin B12. And we’re fans of fat, which creates beautiful marbling and great flavour and also lowers LDL cholesterol levels.

“We hope that our butchers - who are all aged under 35 - will connect with consumers of all ages to impart that directly to them. And it’s not just about health, it’s also about how pasture-led farming is beneficial to the environment and the climate.."

So vegans take note? “I’m not against veganism but am alarmed at many of the meat substitutes on the market which are highly-processed and contain ingredients imported from all over the world.

“We want to attract the younger flexitarian consumer- and there are more of them than vegans - and to promote a healthy balanced diet that includes high-welfare, low-impact, fully traceable and excellent quality red meat.”

Duff is overseeing some pretty exciting tie-ins with other Scottish producers, such as the Edinburgh Butter Company, Blackthorn Salt and Macduff Distillery for new marinades and flavourings, and is looking to expand his offer with Herbmajesty free-range chicken and pork. If The Butchers’ Cut takes off, these may be added to The Gannet East’s menu in future.

Ivan Stein, chef and co-patron of The Gannet in Glasgow and Edinburgh, said: “This is great for us. We’ve been working with MacDuff for years as what they do matches our ethos of buying direct from small-scale local farmers, growers and producers and maintaining close contact with them.

“The Butcher’s Cut is a great opportunity to offer something new and different. It’s a move that creates a link between the raw product and the final dish. We want to show customers what you can do with what they’re buying at the butcher’s as some may not have the confidence to buy meat and cook it at home. They’ll be able to see the direct line between producer and plate, which is what we’re all about.”

And how will the beef be cooked?

“At The Gannet East we use plancha and oven, so we use cuts that lend themselves to quick cooking. It suits our simplified menu, which we’ve tailored to suit the high-footfall, quick turnaround environment we’re in at Bonnie & Wild. Our protein-based dishes are already selling well to the younger demographic and we look forward to developing that.”

ENDS

"All we can do just now is fight for our lives": Roy Brett on the reality of running a top Edinburgh restaurant - against the odds

UPDATE August 17, 2021: Ondine has just been awarded the ‘Best Restaurant in Scotland’ and listed in the Top 100 UK restaurants at The Estrella Damm National Restaurant Awards,.

*Exclusive*

It’s 11 o’clock on a bright summer morning and the soundtrack is Radio 2’s Ken Bruce playing Barry White’s You’re The First, My Last, My Everything. Hips sway as upheld arms polish wine glasses in time to the music; front-of-house staff hum as they fill water jugs for lunch-time tables. The joyful ambience imparts an upbeat note to Edinburgh’s famous seafood restaurant Ondine, and belies its exceptionally gruelling experience of the Covid-19 pandemic – with a couple of extra unwelcome catches thrown in. 

I wait for chef-patron Roy Brett (pictured above) in the private dining room while in the kitchen he finishes salting beetroot for a Korean kimchi – a process I can watch through a rather nifty porthole-shaped window. I have time to notice a subtle shift in the appearance of the entire space in Edinburgh’s Old Town, which normally has views across to the National Library of Scotland on one side, and down picturesque Victoria Street on the other. Those vistas are now gone, thanks to wrap-around floor-to-ceiling scaffolding covering the six-storey building’s exterior while repairs to the cladding is ongoing.

Now, from the inside, those famous windows are screened off and feature artist-designed porthole images to give diners the impression of being inside the cabin of a fishing boat. The cosy vibe befits the maritime theme, but like the other adjustments he’s been forced to make over the last 14 months due to Covid and Brexit, this one is not of Brett’s own making.

“We’ve become the hidden restaurant,” he begins, red-stained hands holding his signature flat white. “The scaffolding is here until next year. It was meant to be only from December 2020 until February/March 2021. Now we know we’re stuck with it until 2022.

“When we were considering re-opening eight weeks ago, we were looking at the scaffolding and asking ourselves, will people come? Will we be able to re-open under all these extra handicaps, such as no walk-ins because of inadequate signage from the street, no drop-off point provided for my suppliers, who are getting parking tickets for delivering food? We’d have to pay around £800 to commission extra signage by a professional artist, and we really did think it would all be too difficult to overcome.

“At one point we were going to close for good. During lockdowns we’d taken our medicine like everyone else, but the scaffolding was the straw that almost broke our back.

“In the end we had to make a decision to push through and make the best of it. We decided that if we can’t control what’s happening on the outside, we can control what happens inside.”

Stewart Hall from the appropriately-named Glasgow design house Atalanta designed the new window coverings, and Brett says customers love them.

Decision made, the claw-back of what was lost during the Covid-19 lockdowns began at speed: it took just 17 days between deciding to re-open and refurbishing the whole restaurant in calm monochrome tones.

Ondine, now Ondine Oyster & Grill with a new robota grill in the kitchen, was launched by Brett in 2009 after working with Rick Stein in Cornwall, Mark Hix at Le Caprice, Alan Hill at the Savoy. It re-opened with just eight staff: four chefs including Brett, and four front-of-house, including restaurant manager Craig Grierson, who has been with Brett since they worked together at the Dakota hotel in South Queensferry. Many overseas staff returned home during lockdown and after Brexit. And just before Ondine did re-open, a staff member tested positive for Covid - meaning everyone had to self-isolate and the restaurant had to close for a further ten days.

Waving, not drowning: Roy Brett with his kitchen staff. (Photo ©CateDevine.)

Now there are 14-16 staff, taking into account part-timers and including new chefs from Bulgaria and South Korea. Brett is sponsoring the latter’s application for a UK residency visa.

And he has put them all on a four-day week for the first time.

“I’m trying to get the business into good health, while looking after my team’s wellbeing,” he says. “Covid has taught us a lesson, given us a chance to re-evaluate and reassess what we’re doing. We can’t do a six-day week at Ondine. It would put too much stress on the team. Five days is enough.”

“Ours is an industry that has never had the brakes put on. If anything good has come out of this, it’s taught us that a restaurant isn’t just about the aesthetics of the food; it’s about everything and everyone involved. You don’t have to work long hours to produce great dishes. This has become especially apparent in 2021, where mental health issues in the hospitality industry have come to the fore.

“A great restaurant doesn’t have to have a Michelin Star in order for customers to enjoy its food.

“We’re a team that has come together like most restaurants from all walks of life, and that in itself creates a special diversity. We have mature conversations around things like, for example, planning for the mushroom season just coming in. I’m finding it very uplifting the way my staff just talk about food. Everyone has stood up to the plate. I’m really proud of what we’ve done.”

The menu is also evolving, with new chefs helping develop fresh plant-based flavours such as the beetroot kimchi, a black pepper sauce, a bagna cauda, fermented fennel, warm tartare sauce. The stalwart buttered crumpets with East Coast crab and pickled cucumber remains, and a new lockdown dish of monkfish satay with Asian slaw is just on.

Clearly, lockdown has provided an opportunity to do some major research and development. But Brexit is proving a yet further hurdle to be overcome.

There is a serious shortage of langoustine and lobster here because the majority is being exported to new markets in China and South East Asia, and consequently the price of Scottish seafood restaurants in the UK has risen dramatically because of the highers prices being paid for it there.

Lobster is now £26 per kilo, and langoustine £22-£25 per kilo, compared to £18-£20 before Brexit. And Carlingford oysters from County Louth in Ireland - Brett’s  favourite - have shot up by 30p per oyster because they are now coming from the EU.

“We have to be realistic about this. There’s nothing we can do about it,” he says.

“But I believe in Ondine and I believe in Craig and my team. We’ve evolved through the years. We’ve given it our best shot but I don’t think this pandemic is over yet and uncertainty about the future remains.

“All we can do just now is fight for our lives.”

Ondine’s new Atalanta-sesigned interior.

ENDS

[All text & photography ©CateDevine.]

New five-course seasonal tasting menu launches in Edinburgh to help the homeless

Delighted to bump into David Hall of Vesta, the Edinburgh restaurant wholly owned by the progressive Scottish homeless charity Social Bite whose mission is to end homelessness. I first met David a while back when I was writing about Vesta’s custom of opening every Monday afternoon to serve a two-course meal to peope experiencing homelessness. I was very moved to meet a group of homeless women from EdinburghAid enjoying the experience of eating out in the restaurant with a choice of dishes: please head to the ‘Published Work’ section of this website for more on this hugely worthwhile - and I understand unique - venture.

Vesta also invites customers to ‘pay forward’ the cost of a coffee, lunch or dinner to people who need it most, and last week David told me he was preparing to introduce a 'Seasonal Taste of Vesta' series from July 8 - a new dining experience showcasing the best seasonal produce Scotland has to offer from fresh seafood to seasonal fruit and vegetables and locally reared meats. For just £30 a head.

(He’s also launching Tribe Kitchen, a unique home delivery service. More on that later.)

I reckon the new tasting menu is a pretty exciting development. I hope it encourages more people living in or visiting Edinburgh to eat at Vesta, and to #bekind to those in desperate need in increasing numbers.

Here’s the menu:

Belvedere Fizz on arrival

Dressed crab
with a buttered crumpet & herb mayonnaise

Pickled berry summer salad

with barley wheat, yoghurt, cucumber & melon

Pan fried lamb rump

with parmentier potatoes, carrot anise, seasonal baby vegetables
& salsa verde

Ardbeg whisky sour sorbet

Chocolate bombe

with caramel & homemade vanilla ice cream

"This food plan is quite an achievement and lifts Glasgow into the emerging global food framework.”

*Exclusive*

Glasgow is set to take its place in an international network of cities using integrated food policies to tackle climate change while achieving a food system that is equitable, sustainable and healthy. Those are the words of Pete Ritchie (pictured below), executive director of Nourish Scotland., who chaired the launch of the ambitious Glasgow City Food Plan (Tuesday June 15, 2021).

The wide-ranging 10-year plan comes ahead of the COP26 UN climate change conference in the city, and aligns with the Glasgow Food & Climate Declaration – a commitment by subnational governments to tackle the climate emergency through integrated food policies and to call on national governments to act. The Food and Climate Action Glasgow (FCAG) works in partnership with a variety of organisations including Glasgow Community Food Network (GCFN), Glasgow Eco Trust and Urban Roots. The FCAG project, pictured below at its launch on World Environment Day, is directly aligned to the Glasgow City Food Plan.

The Glasgow City Food Plan has been developed by the Glasgow Food Policy Partnership (GFPP) and has been two years in the making. So far over 600 people and organisations from across Glasgow have been involved in shaping the developing the plan which underwent a public consultation last autumn. Over 80 multisector stakeholders – including the Scottish Government, Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, Glasgow Community Food Network, Challenge Child Poverty, Nourish Scotland, Trussell Trust, Glasgow University, Glasgow Allotments Forum, Zero Waste Scotland and City of Glasgow College - have committed to seeing it through. The implementation of the plan will be the responsibility of GFPP, which will report annually and publicly on progress.

Some of the Glasgow-specific challenges the City Food Plan aims to tackle include food poverty, obesity (over 60% of adults and 20% of P1 children are overweight or obese), a lack of fruit and vegetables in the diet, food education, and the fact that with 30% of greenhouse gas emissions arising from the global food system, Glasgow City Council has already committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030.

Pete Ritchie of Nourish Scotland who chaired the launch of the ambitious Glasgow City Food Plan

The plan is divided into 76 short- and medium-term actions, deliverable within two and five years respectively). Persuading developers to ensure growing spaces are integrated into new housing developments and have value in the planning decisions is one of the medium-term actions, as is significantly increasing Glasgow’s food-growing capacity by scaling-up allotments and community growing and creating urban farms. In the short term, improving learning about the food system in the education curriculum in schools and colleges, increasing the proportion of locally sourced, low-carbon food served in public sector catering, and using food vouchers at a wider range of affordable farmers’ markets.

Abi Mordin, Chair of GFPP, said: “I’m really proud to have been part of the team working on the City Food Plan. I’m excited by the whole systems and holistic approach we’ve taken, and the collaborative work that has gone into this. We’ve tried to make sure that the 76 joined up actions will pave the way for Glasgow to be a city where good, healthy, ecologically produced food is affordable and accessible for all.”

Pete Ritchie, chair of the launch attended by over 400 people, said: “The Glasgow City Food Plan is quite an achievement as it engages so many important collaborators willing to embrace the city’s specific food, health and climate challenges.

“So often plans like this get produced by a few people in a room then don’t see the light of day. This one feels like it belongs to a lot of good people, organisations and businesses who are all committed to taking worthwhile and lasting action to lift Glasgow into the emerging global food framework.”

• The Times published a version of this story on June 15, 2021

UPDATED MAY 27, 2022: East meets (and greets) West in major Scottish foodie movement

Yet more Glasgow-based independents expand Eastwards. Read on …

(Previous post, dated June 2021:) Well, it’s almost as if the starting blocks have finally been lifted after a year (and more) of champing at the bit. Some pretty significant developments in the Scottish eating-out scene are emerging, no doubt with more to follow.

Following the sensational win in January of Glasgow’s first Michelin Star for 18 years at Cail Bruich under new head chef Lorna McNee, I reckon the most remarkable change in the pipeline is the migration from West to East, with several of the top names in Glasgow’s independent restaurant sector opening outlets in Edinburgh. To be more precise, in Edinburgh’s Bonnie & Wild Scottish food marketplace at the new St James Quarter.

First of these to be announced was Creel Caught, the first solo venture from MasterChef: The Professionals winner Gary Maclean (pictured below left), Scotland’s national chef and lecturer at City of Glasgow College. He has appointed Glasgow-born, Perth-based Stuart Wilson as head chef of the casual dining spot which will champion Scotland’s exceptional seafood paired with seasonal ingredients. There will be nine dishes on the menu to include lobster Thermidor mac‘n’cheese, grilled langoustines with seaweed butter, and monkfish scampi with fries. 

“We are working with three fishmongers - Ethical Shellfish Company on Mull, Amity of Aberdeen and Campbell’s Edinburgh - who will supply us with whatever is available each day and our dishes will be dictated by that,” explained chef Gary. “The whole point of this is to focus on freshness, sustainability and flexibility, and to get the most amazing Scotish seafood into people’s hands at a good price.

“This is set to be a Food Hall like no other and it’s precisely why I chose Bonnie & Wild as the location for my first ever solo dining venture.”

Next to announce an expansion to the Bonnie & Wild Scottish food market was the Finnieston stalwart The Gannet.

The Gannet East will open at the end of the month and I can reveal the newly-appointed head chef is John Munro (pictured below). He is a former senior sous-chef at Timberyard, Edinburgh, working under Ben Radford, and senior sous-chef at Tommy Banks’ Michelin-starred Old Swan at Oldstead, Yorkshire.

“We have struck gold with John,” says Peter McKenna, chef-patron of The Gannet. “He brings a wealth of experience back to Scotland and his cooking is similar to our ethos of local, seasonal, and simple. The Gannet East will be serving small plates of beautiful dishes and John will have a shellfish counter and the fabulous Macduff butchery supplying Scotch beef and lamb on his doorstep.

“I see The Gannet East as being a showcase for what we do at The Gannet.”

And Glasgow restaurant group that owns Ox and Finch recently opened a new outlet in Edinburgh of its popular South East Asian oriented Ka Pao. Its large outlet at SJQ is on level 4, overlooking St James Square.

Jonathan MacDonald, chef-patron (below left), explains: “The name Ka Pao is a play on the Thai word for holy basil, the menu is influenced by the cooking of South East Asia. I’ve spent a lot of time travelling and working in that part of the world and have always had a fascination with the food. It’s a passion shared with Daniel and Sandy, our senior chefs, who have also spent time working in Thailand and travelling throughout the region.

“We are incredibly excited to be bringing Ka Pao to Edinburgh and we know that the restaurant’s fun, relaxed, party vibe will be an excellent fit.”

**NEWER West-to-East openings include Glasgow-based BBC Chef Jimmy Lee’s Salt & Chilli Oriental, Glasgow-based winner of UK’s best burger, El Perro Negro, and - you guessed it - Glasgow-based once again! - the fast-expanding start-up “pancake pioneers” Stack and Still (right).

It’s not all one-way traffic. Travelling in the opposite direction - from East to West - is chef Martin Wishart of the eponymous Michelin-starred Restaurant Martin Wishart in Leith, who is returning to Cameron House at Loch Lomond with former colleague Paul Tamburrini to open a new restaurant at the famous lochside hotel, which sufferered a devastating fire in December 2017 which among many other losses destroyed Wishart’s Michelin-starred restaurant there.

The two chefs (pictured below) have enjoyed a long relationship having worked together for over 20 years at Restaurant Martin Wishart in Leith and The Honours in North Castle Street, Edinburgh, which closed in 2020 because of the pandemic.

Paul Tamburrini (left in photo) said: “Cameron House Resort is a very special place. I worked there in the early stages of my career and loved every minute of it, so to now be leading a new fine dining offering in tandem with Martin Wishart is an absolute honour. We have collaborated successfully in the past and we’re confident this venture at Cameron House will be no different. We have the same vision on food and attention to detail, so it just works, and this is an amazing opportunity for us to be working together again at Scotland’s number one resort.

Cameron House Loch Lomond is, of course, where Glasgow-based chef Graeme Cheevers maintained a Michelin star for seven consecutive years. After some lockdown building delays, he opens his first stand-alone venture Unalome by Graeme Cheevers in the West End of Glasgow next to Kelvingrove Park today.

It’s a fair bet that this is one Glasgow restaurat that will be staying put for the foreeable.

Excl: A pop-up restaurant at sea? Skye's glorious celebration of the easing of lockdown sets sail

Launching a pop-up restaurant at sea must surely be a first for global tourism – and it’s happening off the beautiful Hebridean isle of Skye.

Such is the excitement about the lifting of lockdown restrictions from April 26, and the long-awaited return of tourism, that one of the island’s top chefs wanted to celebrate in style. He has joined forces with the owners of the SeaflowerSkye five-star luxury catamaran to offer diners the chance to sample the island’s world-class produce in a specially created tasting menu – with wine – while experiencing the beauty of Inner Hebrides.

I think this is a fantastic idea from two of the famous island’s most enterprising and passionate young locals.

Calum Montgomery (right), head chef at Edinbane Lodge and a native of Skye, will for two nights cook onboard SeaflowerSkye, owned and run by Ewen Grant and Janice Cooney. 

Chef Calum, nominated for 2021’s Scottish Restaurant of the Year, has developed a special tasting menu for both evenings - April 26 and 27 - which will come with accompanying wines selected by Edinbane Lodge’s restaurant manager, John Grant. 

The two trips will celebrate the reopening of hospitality and tourism returning to the Hebridean Island for the first time since December. 

Calum said: “We have a fantastic relationship with SeaflowerSkye. We’ve both always wanted to work together and with the restrictions lifting on outdoor dining, it presented us with this unique and exciting opportunity to allow us to do something particularly special.”

Guests will be treated to a champagne reception with canapes as the boat sets off towards the island of Rona. This menu will include locally reared beef, barbecued on the deck, served with langoustines creel caught by Ewen’s family., and Konro Barbequed Oyster with Brown Crab and Foraged Sea Vegetables (pictured).

“A number of restrictions remain in place which, for the moment, are preventing us from offering our full dining experience at the lodge itself; however, we will open at the end of May.” 

SeaflowerSkye offer a range of luxury trips allowing visitors to experience unique sights of Skye, Rona and Raasay, which can only be seen by boat, and the chance to spot wildlife on land and sea. Ewen and Janice were accredited with five stars by Visit Scotland in 2019. 

Ewen, also a local of Skye, said: “Coming from a fishing family, we have been lucky to grow up enjoying all that the Scottish coastal waters have to offer. 

“We love being able to share this beautiful local produce with our guests, right where it is caught. We often pass the family fishing boats during our regular trips and enjoy showing guests where their lunch has come from and how it gets to their plate.

“Our shellfish has also made its way to Calum at Edinbane Lodge on many occasions and we are always proud to see it on the menu.”

The connection between the two businesses has been strong since opening in 2018, while the personal relationships go back over 30 years as Ewen and John are cousins, and Calum was a childhood friend of both. 

Calum, an AA three rosette chef, is chef/patron of Edinbane Lodge which has won several awards since opening in 2018 and is one of only four shortlisted for Scottish Restaurant of The Year at the prestigious 2021 CIS Excellence Awards. 

Tickets are priced at £200 per person for an Evening Cruise leaving Portree Harbour at 5pm aboard the Seaflower including Five course Tasting Menu with Accompanying Wines provided by Edinbane Lodge.

Limited spaces are available and will be on sale at www.EdinbaneLodge.com from 10am Monday 19 April 2021.

(SeaflowerSkye will take bookings from May 1. Edinbane Lodge will reopen on May 29. )

Scottish cheese enjoys new-found cult status thanks to lockdown ... and Brexit

*Exclusive*

* Words & photos ©CateDevine

Scotland’s artisan cheese producers are experiencing an unexpected boost - thanks to the double whammy of Brexit and the Coronavirus lockdown.

Cheese makers across the country have developed new Scottish cheeses during the past year, and have found new local markets to sell them to despite the devastating temporary closure of their main outlets in the hospitality industry. Online sales, home delivery boxes, farmers’ markets and independent shops have helped maintain and even increase sales.

Demand for Scottish cheese has increased by up to 40% in the last year in what one major food supplier describes as a “lockdown cheese cult”.

Now producers are set to benefit from the increased local demand as imported Continental cheeses start to cost more, and become subject to delay, due to Brexit red tape.

Making Mozzarella has helped keep Yester Farm in East Lothian going despite an 80% drop in supply to hotels and restauran due to lockdown. “Pizza deliveries across the UK have mushroomed and demand for our Scottish mozzarella has been phenomenal as a result,” said director Jackie McCreery, who adds that being forced to pivot the business online has changed the way they operate for the better. “Going online has been brilliant for connecting us directly to our customers and it lets us see what items are more popular. It has compensated hugely for the loss of foodservice.”

Home delivery cheese boxes have also taken off.

“We have seen phenomenal interest in our home delivery cheese boxes, and we’ve gone from 30 a week up to 300,” said Wilma Finlay of the Ethical Dairy in Dumfriesshire, whose new Stilton-type cheese Barlocco Blue was added to the range during lockdown, along with a range of three new “Skinny” hard cheeses using foremilk from the farm’s own herd of cows.

Selina Cairns (pictured, left, at Partick Farmers’ Market in Glasgow) of Errington Cheese in Lanarkshire has launched Corrington Linn, a new blend of goat and sheep cheese alongside a wider range goat cheese logs. “We’re making more cheese now than before lockdown. We got creative with new ideas mainly out of desperation because you can’t turn the milk off even if the usual markets are closed,” she said. Her new stall at the Partick Farmers Market in Glasgow was queued out at her first appearance recently and she sold much more than she expected.

“You can’t just tell the cows to stop making milk,” agrees Ann Dorward of the Dunlop Dairy in Ayrshire. “When the cows are ready, they’re ready.”

She has been busy with home delivery boxes while developing a top-secret new cheese which could be sold exclusively at the Cheese Club Shop, a new pop-up outlet in Glasgow’s West End. It is the first high street outlet from the Six By Nico restaurant chain, launched specifically to support the beleaguered dairy industry while hospitality remains largely closed in Scotland. It will sell new Scottish cheeses alongside Hebridean Blue by Brendan Reade at Isle of Mull Cheese and Fat Cow from Rory Stone at Highland Fine Cheese among other better-known Scottish and English cheeses.

“We want to support the artisan cheese industry here in Scotland and across the UK, because it has really struggled during lockdown, and with fewer cheeses expected to be coming from the Continent it’s the perfect time to do it,” said Stephen Sweet (right), manager of the Cheese Club Shop. Sweet, 35, previously worked with local cheesemonger George Mewes.

The idea for the Cheese Club Shop developed during lockdown when the Six by Nico Home-X meal box delivery scheme revealed a strong demand for the cheese course. The monthly Cheese Club box was launched as a result, with Sweet handling around 500 each month from the company base in Glasgow. When customer feedback showed that people were keeping the cheese as a separate meal, and wanted more information about provenance, owner Nico Simeone invited Sweet to run a shop and expand the offer as more local products come into season.

“The at-home cheese experience has really taken off during lockdown and we wanted to continue and develop it,” said Sweet. “It’s about educating a whole new generation about local cheese, who makes it and how it’s made. They want to buy local. Talking to customers in the shop can only help spread the word.”

As hotels, restaurants, cafes and pubs start to re-open at the end of the month demand will probably increase, while post-Brexit UK border checks on EU imports - now delayed until January 2022, instead of April to July this year - could hinder supply of Continental cheeses.

But prices for imported cheese are already rising due to Brexit. On April 1, Scottish importer Allan Currie of Clarks Speciality Foods in Penicuik was informed that a further 4% would be imposed on French cheese coming into Scotland on top of the extra £80 per consignment already being paid since January – equivalent to an extra £25,000 a year.

“This is due to export paperwork and other red tape on the EU side,” he said. “Importers on UK side also have extra paperwork which costs money and can cause delays.

“At the same time, demand for Scottish cheese is up by 40% from small to large outlets in wee villages and towns right across the country. It’s like a lockdown cheese cult has developed.”

Many Scottish and British cheeses are arguably similar to those from the Continent.

“When people talk about artisan cheese they tend to think about French or Italian cheeses rather than Scottish or British. But so many UK cheeses have their origins in French or equivalent types,” says Sweet. He cites Ashcombe, a new Morbier-type cheese by David Jowett of King Stone cheese in the Cotswolds, and St Helena, a new Rebluchon/Tomme by Julie Cheyney of St Jude Cheese in Suffolk, and Lincolnshire Poacher Double Barrel, a Cheddar/Gruyere by Simon Jones at Ulceby Cross, as recent English examples also join the Scottish cheeses at his Glasgow pop-up.

“These are great examples of how we can help galvanise the dairy industry in Scotland and England which has really struggled over the last year,” he added.

ENDS

Words & photos ©CateDevine

"If this doesn't put us on the radar for COP26, nothing will." Lisa Lawson on Dear Green coffee's coveted ethical accreditation

*Exclusive*

The new year has ushered in a big cup of cheer for one of Scotland’s leading independent coffee roasters after being granted coveted B Corp status – consolidating its position as one of the country’s most ethical enterprises, while raising hopes for its inclusion in catering at COP26 next year.

Dear Green, founded in Glasgow’s East End nine years ago by local entrepreneur Lisa Lawson, is one of the first Scottish companies and UK coffee roasters to gain B Corp recognition, and now sits alongside internationally renowned UK brands such as Toast Ale, Innocent and The Body Shop, and Scottish brands Bruichladdich, Brewgooder and Beauty Kitchen as a certified B Corp.

The B Corp organisation operates across the UK, Europe, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, East Africa, and the USA and Canada. It aims to create a global economy that uses business as a force for good. Certified B Corps businesses must meet verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. They are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community and the environment in a bid to reduce inequality, lower poverty, protect the environment and create more high-quality jobs with dignity and purpose.

“I’m absolutely thrilled and proud to be starting 2021 with certified B Corp listing for Dear Green,” Lisa Lawson The Herald. “The audit process was extremely rigorous and I was delighted to find we were already meeting, if not surpassing, the required criteria when we began it.

“My staff at Dear Green are never underpaid, undervalued or discriminated against and I’m committed to paying the real living wage. We got a very high score for our work practices, and well our environmental awareness, ethical supply chain, recycling, low carbon footprint, and use of biodegradable packaging.

“We hope we can serve as an example to businesses in Glasgow, Scotland and beyond by producing quality coffee, without sacrificing ethical practices.”  

Ms Lawson and her small Dear Green team regularly visit coffee growing communities from Brazil and Columbia to Ethiopia and Burundi, ensuring a rigid sourcing process that is fair, traceable and sustainable.

Going forward she hopes to start sourcing raw coffee from emerging markets in Malawi and Yemen, importing it to Glasgow via ethical coffee traders with rigid social responsibility practices.

“I’m looking at opportunities to buy from places that meet our high standards,” she said. “The first coffee plants to be grown in Malawi came from the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. It would be so lovely to complete the circle, as it were.”

In the shorter term, and somewhat closer to home, she is hopeful of being listed as a supplier to caterers during COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference scheduled to take place in Glasgow in November 2021. As such Dear Green coffee would be served to the thousands of delegates from around the globe including heads of state, climate experts and campaigners – and could also be consumed by the teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg.

Ms Lawson is an ambassador for Circular Glasgow, the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce-led movement that aims to inspire businesses of all sizes to minimise waste and maximise resources through repair, re-use, recycling and up-cycling. 

“If this new B Corp accreditation doesn’t put Dear Green on the radar for COP26, nothing will,” she added.

[This story was first published in The Herald on January 5, 2021.]

Top Edinburgh chef backs Cheevers' Michelin Star bid for Glasgow *Exclusive*

Good to speak exclusively with chef Graeme Cheevers’ former mentor and my long-term professional contact, Martin Wishart - for whose eponymous restaurant at Cameron House Cheevers gained a Michelin star and retained it for seven consecutive years - and to hear him support his protege’s ambition to attract a Michelin Star for his home city. Here’s my exclusive interview with the Glasgow chef just before he went public:

Graeme Cheevers at Unalome, his first solo venture in Glasgow set to open next spring

EXCLUSIVE first published by The Herald, Dec 5, 2020

One of Scotland’s top chefs is set to open his own restaurant in Glasgow – raising hopes of the city gaining its first Michelin Star since 2004.

Graeme Cheevers, 32, gained a Michelin star for Restaurant Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond at the Cameron House resort and retained it for seven years until it closed following the hotel’s devastating fire in 2017. He went on to gain another Michelin Star at the luxury Isle of Eriska near Oban in Argyll last October, and left just before lockdown earlier this year.

Martin Wishart and Graeme Cheevers in the kitchen at Wishart’s Cameron House restaurant when I interviewed them in 2016. Photo credit: Jamie Simpson @jamiesimpson.photo

Now he is set to fulfil his dream of opening Unalome, his own 50-cover restaurant in a Victorian townhouse on the site of the former Sisters restaurant in Kelvingrove near Finnieston in the spring. He describes it as “like nothing anybody has seen before” - and makes no bones about aiming for a Michelin Star in its first year. It’s an ambition backed by his former mentor Martin Wishart.

“Unalome translates as ‘the journey to enlightenment’ and after 18 years in the business I feel this is where I should be, because this has always been my dream,” he told me. “I definitely want a Michelin Star in the first year of opening, and then aim to progress to two Stars for Glasgow because the city deserves it.”

Although he has yet to confirm his ever-changing A La Carte and Tasting menus, chef Cheevers described his food as “relaxed, unpretentious, of the highest seasonal quality but most importantly really tasty”. Unusually, he will personally serve dishes direct to diners at the table with the aim of increasing interaction with and focus on the food.

“I want to refine what I was doing at Martin Wishart at Cameron House, and to elevate the flavours while simplifying the plate,” he said.

“I want people to feel comfortable, not threatened, as if they’re walking into someone’s dining room - and there will be no fancy words on my menus,” he said, although he is classically French trained. Four bar stools will be available close to the kitchen where diners will be served what he is cooking that day in a move he described as “kitchen dining”, as he dislikes the formal phrase “chef’s table”.

The existing kitchen prep and pass areas are being pivoted so that diners will be able to see the chefs - a brigade he has yet to recruit - in action, while the dining area is being expanded. The look is to be “modern European” with lots of natural stone and shades of brown, green and black.

Glasgow has not had a Michelin-starred restaurant since 2004, when Gordon Ramsay closed Amaryllis at One Devonshire Gardens, citing as the reason a lack of interest in fine-dining in the city. Scotland currently has nine Michelin-starred restaurants and one two-starred restaurant.

Cheevers aims to open Unalome in February or March next year. “If I get a Michelin Star for Glasgow it would be the greatest thing. It would attract more people into the area because people travel for food; food tourism is a big thing.

“I see nothing wrong with having ambition. I don’t want to sound immodest, but if anyone can do this for Glasgow it is me.”

HIs determination is supported by his mentor Martin Wishart, whose own Edinburgh restaurant has a Michelin star and who first employed Cheevers as a commis chef at Cameron House in 2010, promoting him to Head Chef.

He told me: “This is very exciting news for us all. It gives me enormous pride to see Graeme fulfil his dream and open his own restaurant. He is a real chef, with not only a natural talent but also a fundamental understanding of taste and gastronomy.

“I have no doubt he will become the very best Scotland has to offer. I wish Graeme success and am sure it will only be a matter of time before he gives Glasgow the Michelin stars it deserves.”

[Text and main photo ©CateDevine]

My exclusive published in The Herald @heraldscotland

The day I nipped over to Spain ... during lockdown

I’m sitting surrounded by the most inviting selection of food and wine, marvelling at the aromas emanating from sweet acorn-fed Iberian ham and truffled salchichon; free-range cured ham shoulder and acorn-fed Iberian chorizo; green olive oil from Castillo de Canena in Andalusia; a stunning hake pate from Cantabria; organic Manchego cheese PDO from Albacete towards the south-east; and a gloriously fresh traditional gazpacho. I’m back in Spain, where I spent one of my most recent holidays in Europe before lockdown.

In reality I’m at home in Glasgow on a gloomy November afternoon. I’m about to switch on my computer and log into Zoom in anticipation of my first masterclass in Spanish food and wine pairing. I’ll be travelling from the Basque Country to Cadiz and Rioja to the plains of Extremadura and Andalucia and it’s the nearest I’ll get to actually travelling again to Spain in the short term.

On my table is a selection of interesting wine samples too, produced in terroirs ranging from high altitude, low rainfall, windy and dry, to damp and misty; from sandy to clay to limestone; and from ancient to modern production methods. I’m soon to discover that Spain’s growing areas from plateaux to mountains are higher than France, which give many of its wines a freshness and makes them good for matching with food.

Rose Murray Brown MW

Spain not only has a long winegrowing tradition dating back to Roman times (Roman Empire chronicles tell of shipments leaving Tarragona and Andalusia), but it also boasts a cutting-edge modern wine industry that is suited to contemporary menus. I’m about to learn this and more from the first-ever series of virtual Eat Spain, Drink Spain webinar, and expertly led by the Edinburgh-based Master of Wine and journalist Rose Murray Brown (pictured right). Although I can’t see everybody at the zoom session, I understand there are 130 attendees from all over the world. (I’m already thinking how fab it would be if Scotland did something similar for its world-renowned food and drink – but that’s for another time.)

Rose immediately declares that Spain is becoming increasingly known as nation of food and drink, that it has the largest area of vineyards in the world, and that in terms of gastronomy it’s the most dynamic and exciting country in Europe at the moment. It has 11 iconic gastronomy items cheese, fish, fruit, vegetables and legumes, ham, meat and sausages, olive oil, spices and salt, sweets, table olives, vinegars and - naturalmente - wines. Some 70 wines are protected by PDO, and 41 by PGI, status.

Azafran de la Mancha saffron also has PDO status, and is a Slow Food flagship product; likewise the Pimenton de Murcia and Pimenton de La Vera are also PDO. Three types of salt – sea, flake and crystal – are mainly produced in Ibiza, Cadiz and the Balearic Islands, and smoked salt is trending in the foodie market. Also, chocolate production in Spain is huge and there’s a big chocolate and wine matching movement going on.

With Rose we sample some fascinating undiscovered regions and producers, along with better-known ones.

An aromatic stainless-still fermented 2018 VdT Castilla y Leon Albillo, for example, is produced in the highest altitude of all the wines we taste. Along with a delicious sliver of organic ewe’s milk Manchego DOP and a corner of Emily quince paste, we’re off.  

Over 90 minutes or so I learn many things, but mostly …

That zingy Cava Anna de Codorniu Brut (70% Chardonnay, 15% Parellada, 15% Macabeo/Xarello)) goes very well with food, especially gazpacho, fish and crab, melt-in-the-mouth jamon, and tortilla. But producers (the majority of whom are in Catalonia) need to bang the drum for Cava and make the world aware that it’s produced in the traditional method, and is therefore on a par with French Champagne and Italian Franciacorta. With the rise in popularity of Prosecco and the challenge posed by new English sparkling wines, the Spanish industry is in danger of missing the boat unless it shouts a bit more.

That tinned fish is big in Spain. Line-caught tuna loin in olive oil is a premium product. Hake pate by La Ermita in Cantabria goes well with the award-winning Cuarenta Vendimias Cuvee Rueda 100% Verdejo from 40-year-old vineyards by Bodega Cuatro Rayas, one of the first modern white wine regions.   

Spain was behind the times in experimentation for ages but a new generation of producers who have travelled the world have now returned home to take the industry forward. For example, the old terraced vineyards of Perelada Comercial SA, close to France, is currently enjoying a renaissance in the hands of the third-generation Perelada family. Its Finques Emporda is amazingly good with sugar-free chocolate with almonds by Horno de San Jose, a 100-year-old family business in Cantabria.

We Scots wine lovers tend to forget about sherry. In Spain, it’s become a significant popular movement among the young. We tried the Fernando de Castilla Antique Oloroso, from the small bodegas Rey Fernando de Castilla in Cadiz, currently enjoying a fantastic renaissance. “For the younger generations especially, it’s all about eating and drinking local,” says Rose Murray Brown.

Finally, the exquisitely-named small-batch Balcon de Pilatos Maturana Rioja 2017 from the ancient 200 year old Valdemar vineyard is delicious – and robust enough – to keep pace with Beher’s chorizo of acorn-fed 100% Iberian pigs. A taste of tradition, and a fitting way to close our session.

Salud. And bravi, #eatspaindrinkspain #spainfoodnation and @rosemurraybrown.com.

Huge funding boost to Glasgow's unique food plan could establish the city's first urban farm

*Exclusive*

“This funding will help unlock pieces of land, and bring them to life as a range of innovative growing spaces.”

Cllr Anna Richardson, City Convener for Sustainability and Carbon Reduction

Hopes of converting one of Glasgow's golf courses into the city's first urban farm ahead of COP26 have taken a step closer to becoming reality following a major award from the National Lottery to be announced later today [Thursday 19th].

An unprecedented £629,582 from the National Lottery Community Fund to the Glasgow Community Food Network (GCFN) means work can begin tomorrow [Friday] on transforming Glasgow’s food system and reducing its impact on the climate crisis. It is the Lottery’s largest award given to one project specifically tackling climate change in Scotland. 

A project called ‘Low Carbon Sustainable Food City For All’ will be led by GCFN in partnership with Urban Roots, Glasgow Eco Trust, The Space, St Paul’s Youth Forum and Central and West Integration Network. 

Nine new jobs will be advertised from tomorrow, with appointments expected to be made before the end of the year for work to begin in January. 

Five of these are for full-time Community Activators to establish Green Assemblies across the city, where local people are invited to discuss issues around food that affect them in their area. Small grants of £1000 will be awarded to community groups to develop the best food projects.

“Green Assemblies are aimed at empowering people to take action themselves,” Abi Mordin, Chair of GCFN and lead architect of the National Lottery bid, told The Herald. “A Community Activator’s job will be to inspire change in their community. Hyper-local food production and delivery systems, short supply chains - the more that can happen close to communities the better.”

A big push on food education aimed at energising young people in the climate movement, and teaching them how food makes an impact on climate change, is another priority. 

But perhaps the most visible sign of the re-greening of Glasgow could be the city’s first urban farm. GCFN and its partner organisations want to use some of the National Lottery money to convert one of the five municipal golf courses currently under threat of closure to realise this. They are Linn Park, Lethamhill, Littlehill, Alexandra Park and Ruchill.

Abi Mordin of GCFN, lead architect of the successful National Lottery bid for Glasgow

“We urgently need to upscale urban food production in the city and localise our food systems,” said Mordin. “If we can persuade Glasgow City Council to release one of the surplus golf courses it would be just amazing because it would enable large-scale urban agriculture and vegetable growing, facilitate training and apprenticeships in animal husbandry, beekeeping, vegetable growing and so forth. How exciting if – ahead of COP26 – the city can boast that it has its first urban farm.”

The award is part of the ten-year Climate Action Fund aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of communities. Some 300 organisations across the UK have applied and Glasgow’s is largest award to Scotland this year, though Greener Kirkcaldy was awarded just under £200,000 for the Climate Action Fife project in August.

The focus on food was unique to GCFN’s successful application. “If you impact the food system you impact many other things like air quality, carbon emissions, the local economy,” said Mordin. “There has never been a time like this, nor such a need for such coordinated collective action. The challenges from Covid-19, Brexit and climate change require a food system that can respond and recover from shocks.

“I want to say a big ‘thank you’ to all the partner organisations for their time and of course to the National Lottery players for making the funding possible.

“I have no doubt that hosting COP26 tipped the balance in our favour,” she added. “The whole of next year will be geared towards this, and we hope President Biden will come to the city and see what we have achieved.” 

Kate Still, the National Lottery Community Fund’s Scotland Chair, said: “This exciting partnership project will inspire a collective community action among the people of Glasgow. Over the next two years, it will raise awareness of the links between carbon emissions and food production whilst showing just what can be achieved when people take the lead and response to the climate emergency.”

Asked for a response to the golf course challenge, Cllr Anna Richardson, City Convener for Sustainability and Carbon Reduction, told The Herald: “Glasgow City Council has been delighted to support the successful collaborative funding bid to the Climate Action Fund. 

 “The new Community Activator posts will embed climate action work at the heart of local communities, which perfectly aligns with the Council’s approach as we count down to COP26. 

 “We are committed to supporting and expanding food growing opportunities for our citizens through our successful Food Growing Strategy, and this funding will also help unlock pieces of land, and bring them to life as a range of innovative growing spaces.”

[ * This exclusive story was first published in The Herald, November 19, 2020.]

ENDS

Wine news: Glasgow’s double-whammy Gallic love-bomb

Two very different French wine shops are set to open within a week of each other in Glasgow. One is in the busy West End and the other is in a relatively under-provided quartier on the South Side.

Cavavin, run in Glasgow by brother and sister twins and specialising in high-end French wines, is a franchise of the family-owned French company which has its own vineyards in Bordeaux, is supported by over 150 independent growers and partners, and has 150 franchises in France and Switzerland plus Hertford and Sheffield in the UK. It will open its first Scottish store in the former Peckham’s site on Hyndland Road later this month or in early December and plans to run a series of wine and spirit tastings. They are bringing in a local wine expert to join the team.

Meanwhile Made From Grapes, an independent outlet run by professional French sommeliere and wine importer Severine Sloboda and her business partner Liam Hanlon, has taken over Maxwells former off-sales on Nithsdale Road, at the popular neighbourhod populated by independently-run cafes, greengrocers and florists, and also plans to open in the first week of December. An established wine importer Made From Grapes concentrates on wines from 10 small producers France and Germany. They too will also run wine tastings, with cheese and charcuterie.

It's an interesting development, and not only because both are opening in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. It strikes me that, ahead of January’s UK-EU Brexit trade negotiations, this double-whammy Gallic love-bombing of Glasgow is a reminder of Scotland’s historic love of French wine, beginning with Bordeaux Claret in the 17th century Auld Alliance. And, despite the more recent Scottish gin and whisky revolutions, we remain a nation of wine-drinkers: the UK imports £3bn worth of wine every year, predominantly from France and Italy, making it the second largest importer globally.

Yvonne Cozens of Cavavin Glasgow lived for eight years in Switzerland. Severine grew up in Paris. Both women are surely set to be fantastic ambassadors. [I’m just waiting for a photo of Yvonne to upload!]

Severine Sloboda and Liam Hanlon at their soon-to-open Made From Grapes wine outlet in Pollokshields - and, below, as sommeliere at The Gannet, Glasgow

I first wrote about Severine Sloboda two years ago, when she was the first sommelier to be appointed by The Gannet restaurant in Glasgow. The Parisienne was one of only a couple of professional restaurant sommeliers in the city, and the only female one at the time.

She trained with top names in Paris and London before coming to Glasgow five years ago.

Her mother has run the Nicolas wine shop in Paris’s upmarket 7th arrondisement near the Champs Elysees since Severine was 10 years old. She says she was “submerged” in wine from that young age, and went on to train at the Institut du Vin du Savour Club under Georges Lepres, head sommelier at the Ritz. Her first job as head sommelier was in 2006 at Adam Byatt’s Trinity restaurant in Clapham, London. In 2008 she was appointed head sommelier at Angelus near Marble Arch, founded by chef-patron Thierry Tomasin, himself former head sommelier at Le Gavroche. She came to Glasgow five years ago directly from London, where latterly she had been with upscale establishments Corrigan’s of Mayfair and Buddha-Bar in Knightsbridge.

She came to Glasgow directly from London and admits to experiencing something of a culture shock in Glasgow, finding it difficult to secure a professional sommelier position in any restaurant until The Gannet’s Peter McKenna and Ivan Stein took her on. She ran a series of successful wine dinners there for three years until deciding to pursue her dream of opening her own wine business, while continuing to host Somm-Night-In, her virtual wine tastings and masterclass service.

When we met again last week, she offered a fascinating view of the modern Fench wine industry and how Glaswegian tastes are changing. She said she feels Glasgow has become much more progressive and open to new ideas in wine: “Made From Grapes will focus on small artisan producers from Europe, where terroir – the soil, low carbon footprint, ecology and biodiversity - and are the driving factors, not only because that’s what I believe in but also because I see massive demand for that in Glasgow right across the generations,” she says.

In the 14 years she has been in the business, she names a move towards lighter, fresher, wines with natural acidity and minerality and specific hyper-local provenance as the most significant shift in both consumer preference and in production. This chimes, she believes, with the wider food movement. “Ten years ago people began to care about what they ate and where it came from. Now they want to know which wine they’re drinking and where it came from. They are looking for authenticity, provenance, minimum intervention and flavour.

“And it won’t all be 14% ABV,” she adds, to my relief.

She cites the new generation of wine growers re-energising the industry in France, Germany and beyond; ancient cool-climate vineyards with good healthy soil being replanted; and even English pinot noir and Chardonnay being produced in urban wineries such as the Blackbook Winery in London’s Battersea, with grapes purchased from Europe. Natural wines from the Lebanon, Greece and Georgia will also feature, though Severine is adamant that Bordeaux and Burgundy will be mainstays.

The search for premises in her preferred South Side was hampered by the Covid-19 lockdown but now, finally, she and her business partner Liam Hanlon - a lawyer she first met two years ago when he attended one of her wine dinners at The Gannet and chose a Saint Croix La Serre from her wine list - can finally move forward.

Made From Grapes, like Cavavin, will feature a large central sharing table for savouring and discussing individual wines along with charcuterie and cheeses. “Our aim is to be relaxed, friendly, non-prescriptive and certainly not corporate,” says Severine.

So, santé, slaìnte … and vive la différence!

 [Words and photos ©CateDevine]

Glasgow's green revolution just keeps on growing ahead of COP26 next year

Glasgow’s undergoing a significant green revolution and has numerous growing sites around the city that supply restaurants and cafes as well serving the local communities. Why is this signficant ahead of the city hosting the UN Climate Change Conference next year? Read on ...

[This exclusive report was first published in the Sunday National on October 18, 2020.]

Glasgow greens took centre stage in a cooking competition aimed at mashing the city’s reputation for poor dietary health – and showcasing the world-class produce being grown on some remarkable sites across the city.

Smoked chard replaced the deep-fried Mars Bar and hispi cabbage overtook crispy pizza on World Food Day last Friday [Oct 16] as three Glasgow chefs convened in an East End market garden to compete in the final of the Veg Cities Chefs’ Challenge 2020 under the watchful eye of head judge Gary Maclean, MasterChef the Professionals winner and Scotland’s national chef. The heat was on as the rivals strove against the odds to produce a range of new plant-based dishes made with local, naturally grown ingredients with zero food miles or food waste.

The Masterchef-style cook-off, backed by the UK-wide Sustainable Food Cities network and organised by the Glasgow Community Food Network, is now in its third year in Glasgow but for the first time took place in the open air due to Covid-19 restrictions. A barbecue and two camp fires erected at Greenheart Growers market garden in Tollcross - formerly the drying green of a Victorian steamie - replaced the professional stoves at City of Glasgow College, where it normally takes place.

Finalists Keir Irvine of Le Petit Cochon, Robbie Kirkman of Eusebi’s and John Traynor of the Under Cover Dinner Society - selected from nine rival competitors - had to create new dishes from a mystery box of city-grown produce of a variety that would confound Glasgow’s reputation as an unreconstructed No Mean City. Here were on-trend seasonal flavours, colours and textures: candy beetroot, tiny salad turnips, baby carrots and leeks, red celery, sweet cicely, lemon balm, nasturtium seed pods and shoots, celeriac and lacto-fermented Ayrshire tatties. Foraged elderberry vinegar, croft eggs, Glasgow honey, Mossgiel milk and a range of heritage Scots products including Golspie Mill peasemeal, Barony Mill beremeal, Scotland The Bread organic wheat flour and sourdough starter helped the chefs’ creative juices flow.

Produce was supplied by an astonishing range of growers from across the city including the Springburn food hub; Maryhill community garden on a former whisky bond site; St Paul’s Youth Garden at Blackhill’s Growing in Provanmill; and a hydroponic growing space in an old railway arch in Tradeston.

John Traynor won the Green Colander Award for his peasemeal, Ayrshire potato and apple porridge (pictured above) and three-vegetable kebab. His dessert of apple and celeriac beremeal sponge, sweet cicely custard and crystallised blackcurrant leaves was deemed “as good if not better than anything you’d eat in a Michelin-starred restaurant” by head judge Gary Maclean. Robbie Kirkman’s fermented potato pancake with beets three waysm salsa verde and carrot tops (below) illustrated how colourful - and tasty - the city-grown veg can be.

Adding extra nuance to this year’s event was the fact that it runs concurrently with newly-launched public consultation on the Glasgow City Food Plan, the first of its kind in Scotland. Backed by Glasgow City Council and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board among others it aims to help Glasgow in its commitment to become carbon neutral by 2030 and to make healthy, affordable food accessible for everyone living and working in the city.

A major restriction is the lack of growing space for greater volume and diversity. Food deserts and food swamps persist, and there are concerns that while the city’s restaurants are celebrated, local food growing is not.

Glasgow currently has three market gardens, around 90 community gardens and growing spaces and 32 allotments sites. Yet two-thirds of the population reports eating fewer than five portions of fruit and veg a day, and 12% report eating none. Organisers want more growing spaces on the city’s 1300 hectares of vacant and derelict land across 925 sites and for public services to buy and sell healthier and more sustainable food and support local businesses.

Glasgow currently has three market gardens, around 90 community gardens and growing spaces and 32 allotments sites. Yet two-thirds of the population reports eating fewer than five portions of fruit and veg a day, and 12% report eating none. Organisers want more growing spaces on the city’s 1300 hectares of vacant and derelict land across 925 sites and for public services to buy and sell healthier and more sustainable food and support local businesses.

The Veg Cities Chefs’ Challenge also chimes with the ambitions of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), postponed because of Covid-19 pandemic and rescheduled to be held in Glasgow next November.

It’s anticipated that in addition to the 30,000 delegates from around the world, thousands of global climate activists and campaigners will also descend on the city and seek out hyper-local, high-welfare, ethical, sustainable and affordable food experiences.

“Glasgow’s called the Dear Green Place, but people don’t think of it as somewhere you can grow superb, healthy fresh food that has zero food miles,” said Chefs’ Challenge organiser Grant Reekie of the Glasgow Community Food Network. “Springburn, Parkhead and Tradeston aren’t places naturally associated with gourmet ingredients, but we are out to prove how wrong that is.

“The whole point of the Chefs’ Challenge is to show what Glasgow is doing and how it’s possible for every citizen to eat more vegetables if we have enough land and resources to grow them and more shops, restaurants and cafes to sell them.”

Gary Maclean said: “This competition illustrates how progressive Glasgow is. Events like this showcase how incredibly good our produce is and how it chimes with the greater movement towards local, sustainable ingredients and zero food waste.

“Seeing the guys cooking fresh produce in the environment it was grown in is incredibly exciting – and full of potential.”

• ©2020 Cate Devine. Copyright of the text and images on this website belongs to Cate Devine unless otherwise stated. Please contact me for any commissions, or to comment on current issues.

The Scottish terroir comes home

It was the dinky wee tubs and bags accompanying the main course container that I found most endearing. Fred Berkmiller’s pot-au-feu, collected on Friday as a takeaway-for-two from his Edinburgh restaurant l’Escargot Bleu, really delivered the sense that much care and attention had been put into each element personally by chef himself.

His slow-cooked pot-au-feu, an earthy French ragout that literally translates as “pot on the fire”, was launched to mark Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight, the annual celebration of Scotland’s natural larder – or what chef Fred refers to as “le terroir ecossais”. He currently sources from 50 different suppliers across the country, and is a recipient of the Scottish Sourcing Award at the Scotland Food and Drink Awards. For the pot-au-feu he uses local beef, lamb, pork and chicken, and for my meal he’d sourced the veg (potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions) from his private walled garden in Newton near Edinburgh. (This is a wonderful space of raised beds, a polytunnel and an ancient greenhouse which I had the privilege of visiting last year with Fred. His new-found passion for growing all sorts of fruit and veg for his restaurant was palpable – and catching.)

He made two stocks to maximise the natural flavours: one a clear salted bouillon of featherblade, tongue, cheek and vegetables to draw out their flavours, and the other is unsalted so the flavour remains in the meat and veg. When combined, they rendered the entire dish exceptional because not only was the gravy delicious, but the texture and flavour of all four meats remained delightfully distinctive. It reminded me of when I lived in France and learning to cook a la francaise, even if the ingredients here were Scottish. And this time, all I had to do was reheat it for around half-an-hour.

And what about the lidded pots? One contained Dijon mustard to accompany the casserole. The others each contained the most delicious Soupe de Poissons (made with Eyemouth crab, Skye langoustine heads, haddock, conger eel and of course Pastis, pictured right), aioli, croutons, Gruyere; a clafoutis made with plums and apples from chef’s garden; and a duck-egg crème brule. Exceptional quality with very little effort on my part.

For chef and his team – initially wife Betty, daughter Matilde and son Camile but now supplemented once again by his regular staff - it’s not quite so easy. With around 80 takeaway orders weekly, some for two, four or six people, he is cooking around 300-450 ready meals a week. Together with running his restaurant l’Escargot Bleu with reduced seating, his working week now involves running two sets of menus, though with very different delivery methods.

On Mondays he writes the new menus and his weekly newsletter (which now attracts around 50,000 views: visit www.lescargotbleu.co.uk/); Tuesdays he is on his own butchering and prepping for the week; joined by his team on Wednesdays for lunch and dinner service at the restaurant and cooking for takeaway; Thursdays for the restaurant and takeaway; Fridays boxing up takeaway orders and running the restaurant for lunch and dinner, plus doing takeaway deliveries (which he loves because it means he gets to chat with customers); and on Saturdays cooking in the restaurant for lunch and dinner.

He says it’s difficult to determine whether takeaway is taking up equal or more time than running two restaurants did (l’Escargot Blanc, Fred’s other restaurant, is currently closed). But he does acknowledge that doing takeaway is a lot more demanding than he’d initially assumed it would be. Firstly, sourcing containers online was tricky “because everybody else was starting takeaway around the same time as we were”. His are plastic, because composable ones were impossible for him to find, but they are re-usable – and the lids snap closed properly. Also, ensuring food is at the correct temperature and stays fresh in the fridge until next day if required, is vital.

When I went to collect my order from the downstairs area that used to be Bleu’s delicatessen and is now used as the takeaway kitchen and packing area, I was worried I was arriving too soon at 2.10pm. However there was already a small queue ahead of me and by the time Betty and Matilde had packed my order and we’d had a wee chat the queue had stretched along the courtyard, up the stairs and onto the street. But just as many prefer to stay indoors while the pandemic persists and rely on home delivery rather than visiting the restaurant.

“When we first decided to do takeaway in May, we hadn’t been earning a penny since lockdown began in March since Betty and I are self-employed and furlough didn’t apply to us,” explained Fred. “We weren’t in a position to advertise so we simply used our customer database to let people know and honestly, the phone and order line went crazy.

“It was like people emerging from the war desperate for food. It was wonderful.”

Is takeaway here for good? “My gut feeling is that it will remain a core part of our business,” he says. “We already have about 30 return customers each week and I like to think they feel the benefit of our clean, well-sourced, ‘feel-good’ food.

“I do think people are more conscious of the benefits of eating local and eating well, and paying the right price for it, than before the arrival of Coronavirus,” he concludes. “I can’t express enough how grateful we are for the loyalty and trust of our customers. We could not have continued without them.”

A visit to chef Fred’s walled garden at Newton, near Edinburgh, last year, was inspirational

[Words and photos ©️CateDevine]

Scotland calls North America in the world's largest Zoom cookery masterclass

EXCLUSIVE

Some 2000 North Americans are set to learn how to cook with some of Scotland’s finest produce today (Saturday September 5, 2020) in what’s believed to be the world’s largest Zoom cookery masterclass to date.

Gary Maclean, Scotland’s National Chef and a MasterChef: The Professionals former winner, will host the free interactive online tutorial from his home in Glasgow in collaboration with Central Market, the upscale US food retailer with ten stores and ten cook schools across Texas - including Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Fort Worth. The four-course Scottish seafood menu, launching Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight 2020, features fillet of native Hebridean salmon from the Scottish Salmon Company, smoked salmon from Loch Fyne Oysters in Argyll, langoustines from DR Collin in Eyemouth, Tain Cheddar from Highland Fine Cheeses, and a Cranachan dessert using oats by Stoats of Edinburgh, ice cream by Equi’s in Hamilton, honey by Heather Hills in Blairgowrie, and chocolate by Mackie’s of Aberdeenshire.

It's the first time Central Market has organised such an event - and it’s the first of its type on this scale to take place in the US, if not the world.

Participants can buy all of the menu ingredients in-store, pre-order online for home delivery or to pick up in store, before and after the 90-minute event (which starts in the US at 11am, and in the UK at 5pm). UK residents can also follow online (see menus & link below).

Juan-Carlos Jeffrey, Vice-President Food & Drink at Scottish Development International, which helps Scottish producers access new markets, described the unprecedented number of sign-ups for the inaugural class as “a very pleasant surprise”.

SDI has been working with Central Market – which describes itself as a “gourmet marketplace” roughly equivalent to Whole Foods Market in the UK - since 2016. It is the launch partner for CM’s digital Cooking School.

“We are absolutely delighted at the level of interest so far, which goes above and beyond expectations,” he told me. “We thought we might get up to a thousand participants but we’re now at double that.”

A sign, then, that North American consumers are keen on Scottish produce? “Central Market prides itself on sourcing high quality produce of great provenance and on offering a very curated selection of on-trend products their customers can buy,” said Mr Jeffrey. “Scotland has a broad basket of products to offer that meet those criteria.

“And chef Gary Maclean ticks all the right boxes as the host. He is a great educator and communicator and is certain to give participants a memorable cooking experience while telling the stories behind the ingredients.”

With Coronavirus still spreading in Texas and across the US, he sees this as an opportunity to test the model and do more in the future. “The pandemic means the ability to go into food stores, discover and engage with new products is diminished. People can’t go to cooking classes physically. Equally, producers can’t come to market any more. So this virtual programme is a very tangible way of bringing Scotland to buyers and end users, and of giving customers a unique Scottish cooking experience.

“We’re going to see more of it as we get used to using our devices to access high-calibre ingredients and ways of using them.”

Chef Gary, who is a passionate food educator and a long-time lecturer in professional cookery at City of Glasgow College (where he is currently Executive Chef), is thrilled at the prospect.

“I think this must be a world record cookery class and shows incredible interest in our food and culture during these difficult times,” he told me. “I’m really excited at the numbers after the effort it’s taken to pull this together over several months.

“I’m certain this will tap the hearts and minds of many people in an area where these Scottish ingredients are available, and where many towns, rivers and hills have Scottish names. North Americans are very patriotic and if they have even a hint of Scottish blood in their DNA they really go for it. Central Market supermarkets are very popular in Texas and they are selling all this Scottish produce. It’s great for our suppliers and producers and this is an opportunity to tell the story of Scotland through its food. It’s sure to make a difference to Scottish exports to the US.

“I mean, who’d have thought you could source ice-cream from Equi’s in Hamilton in the middle of Texas?”

I ask Mr Jeffrey about the significance ahead of the resumption of UK-US Brexit trade talks next spring. He replied: “While it’s not of direct significance, we welcome the news of the removal of shortbread and other biscuits from the 25% tariff applied last October and would welcome any trade deal that removed barriers to trade and allowed Scotland’s produce to be compete more equitably.”

Central Market’s Explore Scottish Seafood with Gary Maclean

Cookalong dish

·         Fillet of Native Hebridean Salmon with a Warm Potato Salad, Capers, Poached Egg and Asparagus

Demonstrated dishes

·         Smoked Salmon Salad with French Beans, Snap Peas, Pea Puree and Almonds

·         Grilled Langoustine with Tain Cheddar, Fennel, Pea and Herb Salad and Aioli

·         Cranachan with Seasonal Fruit, Stoats Oats, Equi’s Ice Cream and Heather Hills Honey

Visit www.eventbrite.com/e/explore-scottish-seafood-with-chef-gary-maclean-tickets-116791306943

Lessons learned in virtual cookery class

What strikes me most about taking part in a virtual cookery class is the number of things you learn without expecting to. For example, the amount of advance prep that’s required from the chef and staff. Receiving one’s box full of each carefully-measured, weighed, portioned, chilled, sometimes partially-cooked, and packaged component of the multiple-course menu, plus printed instructions, is the first thrill. Some are sent to hundreds of participants all over town and beyond. Not only does it makes you realise the sheer hard graft that goes into running a professional kitchen; the added complication of logistics – getting the ingredients safely delivered intact and in compliance with health and safety regs – is pretty impressive.

I took part in one of the first @Home classes hosted by Stuart Leslie, head chef at The Cook School, the sister company of Braehead Foods in Kilmarnock. The £50-for-two menu was Italian and we made aubergine cannelloni (ten ingredients), mushroom risotto (11 ingredients), chicken breast wrapped in Parma ham (four ingredients), and chef kindly threw in a pre-made vanilla Panna Cotta for dessert. The equipment list packed into my box required some 19 items to be found around my kitchen and laid out in advance (a useful time-saver during the 90-minute class).  

My mis-en-place sorted according to chef Stuart Leslie’s instructions

The second thing I learned that night was how great it was to be able to ogle other participants’ kitchens. Forget politicians’ bookcases being featured on news channels as TV interviews have been conducted at home, following social distancing guidelines: this was far more interesting, if a little envy-inducing.

The third thing was how to chop an onion. Finally. Chef Stuart cheerfully - and tearlessly - demonstrated how you’re meant to cut the top of the onion off and keep the root on so that vertical slices stay together until you cut the root off. Bravo. As the atmosphere between us and the dozen or so others was relaxed and full of banter, helped along by the fact that most of us had a glass of wine to hand, I didn’t feel embarrassed at my ignorance.

“There’s no such thing as a silly question, as we’re here to be comfortable as we go,” chef Stuart assured me. I’ve since been told that someone in another class on vegetarian cookery enquired about the best way to cook a steak.

So I wasn’t abashed to discover that risotto should be served slightly sloppy, otherwise it’s more of a paella, and that it should be eaten on a cold plate to stop it continuing to cook and congeal.

Speed, precision, keeping the work station clean and tidy, sticking to the plan and paying attention to detail were also important lessons I learned as a home cook. Thanks to chef, I was really pleased with the end result of my dishes.

I also discovered that the presentation skills of the host chef are key to the whole thing. Chef Stuart has been running The Cook School for some years now, so is used to performing in front of an audience. Others may have to learn this – it’s no longer the case that a chef’s life is destined to be led in obscurity, stuck behind the stove. If the Coronavirus pandemic continues and lockdowns are imposed around the country, online classes are set to stay.

“Doing live classes were Stuart’s idea, and the reaction and feedback so far have been absolutely brilliant,” says Craig Stevenson, managing director of Braehead Foods. “They were designed for lockdown to cater for those working from home, learning to cook, who need a break or a date night, but can’t go out to eat,” he says. “We will be continuing this into the future even if lockdown stops. It’s a good way to educate and entertain customers, while helping local producers and suppliers and even delivery drivers stay in work.”

My version of the aubergine cannelloni …

·        The Cook School @Home classes continue tonight and tomorrow with a Scottish Larder menu to mark the beginning of Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight. For this and other classes, visit https://cookschool.org/product/cook-school-home/

"It's all about staying relevant, not sitting at home crying”: two of Scotland's top "guerilla" chefs on popping up after lockdown

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

Why Scotland's newest artisan foodie product is truly the salt of the earth - and the sea

Exclusive

Brilliant July sunshine casts a magical sparkle on millions of fresh sea water droplets as they trickle down through the only salt-producing thorn graduation tower in the world. Facing the sea from the Ayr coastline across to Arran, this mighty and mysterious-looking wooden structure has a wonderful story to tell – and not only because it is returning salt-making to an area once renowned for it.

Blackthorn Salt’s graduation tower is the first thing that hits you are you travel down the delightfully-named Saltpans Road that runs along the industrial coastline at Ayr. I’d been desperate to visit for ages, but lockdown had prevented it. When I finally go to make the journey this week, the wait was certainly worth it.

Finished only in March last year, the tower is modelled on the huge old blackthorn towers that still exist in Germany, Austria and Poland – although they are used as spas or outdoor ‘inhalatoriums’ to improve respiratory conditions. In Ayr, the Blackthorn graduation tower was designed and built locally, specifically to produce a modern, eco-friendly, sustainable and tasty gourmet salt.

“We visited the Polish and German towers several times on research trips, but the people who knew most about them couldn’t come to help us here as they are no longer producing salt,” said Blackthorn Salt founder Gregorie Marshall (pictured left with wife and business partner Whirly), a former Glasgow architect whose great-great grandfather 140 years ago founded Peacock Salt, the largest distributor of salt products in the UK, on the site at the delightfully-named Saltpans Road. Gregorie is now MD of the company, and his is the only salt being produced by Peacock. It is his brainchild, and he runs it with Whirly and Malky McKinnon, right, who has been with Peacock since leaving school at 16 and is now a fully-trained master salter with Blackthorn Salt.

The aesthetic appeal of the eight-metre-high, 23-foot-long tower is huge. I loved the visual contrast between the clean, straight lines of the horizontal larch beams and the vertical Douglas fir posts, the spherical wooden taps and the stiff, jagged, thorny branches of blackthorn (a tree native to Scotland and which grows sloe berries). Most of the bunches that are rammed together like thatch in their tens of thousands into the spaces of the 45-degree-angled triangular structure are imported from Poland, but one section has been was given by the Gledpark venison farm in Kirkcudbrightshire after Marshall put out an appeal for donations. He hopes that in future – when the bundles need replaced in about seven years’ time – all the twigs will be Scottish and has ambitions to plant his own blackthorn field.

And gently cascading down through this dark Sleeping Beauty-esque hedge is the all-important sea water, taken from Troon and pumped up into wooden channels that run across the top of the tower. It goes up at around 3% salination and by the time it has trickled down to the tray below - about one minute - it can have increased by between 0.4% and 4%, depending on weather conditions. It is circulated until it has increased to around 22% salination when it’s ready for transfer to the panhouse. After around four days of slow-heating and stirring by hand, it reaches 26% salination and crystallises to yield around 250 kilos.

The countless blackthorn thorns and twigs increase the surface area over which the sea water evaporates, while filtering out calcium sulphate, so the salt retains about 93%-96% sodium chloride (similar to French sel de gris) plus magnesium, calcium, potassium, sulphates, copper and other trace elements. This, plus the £6.40 price tag for a 240g box, elevates it to ‘gourmet salt’ status: for perspective, the best-known table and sea salt brands contain up to 99.9% and are much cheaper due to industrialised production methods and higher sodium levels.

Without the need for a pinch of salt, I’m willing to bet that true foodies, professional and amateur, will be willing to pay for the unique provenance, relatively small-batch availability, the slight sepia tinge lent by the blackthorn bark, and the time and labour involved in making this, the only salt made this way.

The flakes are exceptionally large and fragile, breaking down easily in the box. I ask Whirly to describe the flavour. “I think Blackthorn Salt tastes, as you’d expect, of the sea, but in a good way, without any of the sudden, shocking brininess that a mouthful of seawater brings,” she says. “It is tangy and confident followed by a more rolling sweetness.”

It’s generally accepted that when sprinkled on top of a dish, good salt helps draw out flavour. Would she agree? “Blackthorn really shines as a finishing salt, squished easily and finely between thumb and forefinger for a gentle, smooth and even spread, or the flakes just lightly sprinkled as they come, to give that attention-seeking spark to combat richer foods,” she says, adding that flakes atop grilled pineapple or fresh watermelon taste fantastic and when added sparingly to coffee help take away any bitterness.

The couple’s softly, softly approach to marketing relies, for now, on word of mouth within the hospitality industry. Forced by lockdown to put off a high-profile Spring launch of their very first batch, they decided instead on a “Pass the Salt” campaign where “for fun and for free” they sent out 19 boxes (a reference to Covid-19) to people who were meant to come and visit pre-launch or expressed a particular interest in what they had been doing. They asked them to pass on the names of others if they liked it, who in turn would pass on other names.

Some of this batch was also sent out, in larger tubs, to kitchens providing support meals for key workers. The cost of the salt was donated to the South Ayrshire Food Bank, Hospitality Health and the National Emergencies Trust.

Now the second batch is being weighed and packed. I hope it enjoys the fairytale reception it truly deserves.