 |  |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| | | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|  | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|  | | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ARTICLES: SEAFOOD RESTAURANT, ST ANDREWS December, 2005 © MARK FISHER published in The Herald
EATING OUT 5 PLACES FOR EATING AFTER A WALK ON THE BEACH THE SEAFOOD RESTAURANT Bruce Embankment, St Andrews 01334 479475 Style: classy Food: seafood Dinner: £38.50 for three courses Wheelchair access: No MANY YEARS ago on a scorching day in June I joined 1000-odd cyclists in the annual Edinburgh to St Andrews cycle ride. After 67 miles, the pint I had on arrival felt like the most deserving I'd ever drunk. The day's exertions were instantly justified.
The same could be said, all these years later, of the same city's Seafood Restaurant after a bracing walk along the Fife coast. A modern glass box hanging above the sand, at the point where the town meets the golf course, it sits like a prize, willing you on as you battle against a raging sea breeze.
Turn up, as we did, on a December night with a full moon radiant above and it looks stunning. Like a crock of gold at the end of a rainbow, it gives off a warming glow, casting a pale beam of light across the sand and over the incoming tide. If your beach walk has been too strenuous, you might think you are dreaming it.
Happily, it's as real as its sister premises, the St Monans Restaurant, which has a similarly arresting view of the St Monans harbour. The award-winning mini-chain has built its reputation on location just as much as the quality of its food.
On the inside, the Seafood Restaurant has the same striking sense of theatre as it does outside. Once you get over the disappointment of not being able to see anything more than a few lights on the adjacent coast (on a light summer evening the view must be spectacular), you start to appreciate the artistry in the room itself.
Working silently behind a counter, all dressed in white, the chefs are in full view. With monochrome symmetry, the serving staff are dressed in black, as if any hint of colour would interrupt the clean lines of the glass walls, white tablecloths and the elegant, minimalist interior.
But there's something else. It's the lack of music. In some restaurants that can spell lack of atmosphere, but here it would be too much. Your senses have enough to feast on as the ever-changing smells of cooking fish waft over from the kitchen and the chefs busy themselves with unflappable and silent concentration. Presumably, the second kitchen downstairs is where they let off steam when they get a touch of the Gordon Ramsays. Up here they are models of restraint.
None of this comes cheap (we were seduced by the idea of a kir royal aperitif, not expecting that two glasses would come to £17) but the food is meticulously presented and the advertised three-course dinner is more like five.
First comes an "amuse bouche": a tasty carrot, parsnip and ginger soup. After the main course comes a "pre-desert": a little cup of strawberry mousse with a blob of cherry sorbet. And, with the espresso, two pieces each of fudge, Turkish delight and almond chocolate. Our only mistake was to have had the beach walk before and not after the meal.
Our starters were a Thai crab salad with pepper sauce and parmesan crisps - a light and gentle way to begin - and a parsnip velouté, which was deliciously warming and creamy. The main course turbot was succulently fresh, if a tad bony, and came on top of an elaborate mixture of shrimp and mashed potato plus a slightly overpowering anchovy and basil bagnet. A risotto with wild mushroom and sundried tomato was firm and moist, topped with parmesan crisps and shredded greens.
To finish, a piece of brie de meaux was enhanced by a homemade bowl of piccalilli but let down by less than fresh walnut bread. There was a striking lemon tang to the delicate panacotta, served with pistachio sauce and a poppy-seed sponge which was, like the bread, rather dry. These are minor weaknesses but easy to avoid and therefore disappointing in an up-market restaurant with such tremendous strengths. |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| See other examples of my writing here: arts politics • celebrity profiles • food • health • literature • music • non-celebrity profiles • opinion pieces • theatre reviews • travel • visual art | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Academic • Actors • Agents • Articles • Companies • Festivals • Groups • Industry • Mailing List • Mark Fisher • Others • Reviews • What's On • Writers • Site Map | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
