][1]Ahead of Albert Roux opening a new restaurant at Inver Lodge in Sutherland on Wednesday and at Greywalls in East Lothian on the 1st of May, there are a couple of profile interview pieces with him in the Scottish press.
The Scotsman is charmed by him here while The Herald talks to him about the Scottish food scene here.
As well as letting drop that he used to call his former protege Brian Maule, of Glasgow’s Chardon D’Or, ‘Jocky’ and that Martin Wishart, while working at Le Gavroche, picked up the unfortunate soubriquet of Sick Note (I’ll bet his sous chefs don’t call him that), Monsieur Roux has some interesting thoughts on the culinary differences between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
In The Herald piece, he is quoted as saying, ‘Glasgow spends more money per head on food compared to Edinburgh which from what I’ve seen is old money. Glasgow is new money, and they spend it quite freely and yet, and yet … there’s not a top restaurant there. Someone should do it.’
I suspect that Ronnie Clydesdale at The Ubiquitous Chip, Paul Tamburrini at Hotel Du Vin at One Devonshire and Brian Maule would all have something to say about Glasgow not having a top restaurant but Roux still has a point: Glasgow doesn’t have the breadth and depth of high end dining options that Edinburgh has.
Why not?
When Gordon Ramsay’s Amaryllis folded, he said it was because Glasgow wasn’t ready to spend big money on fine dining. Natch, he was talking out of his bahookie.
But still, something is stopping big name chefs from tapping into Glasgow.
Let’s hear your thoughts.