Fore! | Review: Restaurant Andrew Fairlie at The Gleneagles Hotel

It may not be a Twitter word (too many characters) but notwithstanding the Independence Referendum, if you consider Scotland to be a place apart, you’ll understand how Scots generally regard Gleneagles.

Nobody “drops in” to Gleneagles because they’re passing. It’s the Valhalla of golf, recently voted the best course – Jeremy Clarkson pause – in the world, with the Ryder Cup to be played there in late September 2014. It’s a grandiloquent, international resort hotel, with its own upscale shopping mall offering single malts and diamonds rather than glitzy gimcrackery and coffee.

Oh, and it’s got what is generally considered to be Scotland’s best restaurant.

To a non-golf playing Scot like myself, Gleneagles is a bit like being a vegan in a butcher’s shop

To a non-golf playing Scot like myself, Gleneagles is a bit like being a vegan in a butcher’s shop. Or a diabetic in the Irn-Bru warehouse. The global obsession with golf peaks here, with the SPGA HQ, well-appointed rooms overlooking the fairways, and lots and lots, and lots, of men in jumpers. I’d like to be really fired up about its three courses. But I couldn’t care less.

It’s a shortish hop from both Glasgow and Edinburgh to Gleneagles’ own toytown Victorian railway station (the London sleeper stops there too), where new lifts have been installed to cope with the crowds for the Ryder Cup which, incidentally, is earning small fortunes for local people. I stood on the platform talking to one wee wifie who’s renting out her cottage for £40,000. For FIVE DAYS. Otherwise, Gleneagles sits amid glorious Perthshire farmland, countryside and… golf courses.

Quite understandably, it’s with trepidation that you arrive here to dine in Andrew Fairlie’s two Michelin star establishment. You half-expect waiters in plus fours and menus offering “High Tee”. But, though it shares the Gleneagles name, the restaurant is an entirely separate operation, bunkered inside the grand hotel, not overlooking the fairways. It’s only open for dinner (when it’s dark) and sidelines golf entirely.

So, stars aside, how do you become Scotland’s “best” restaurant? When I visited, Mr Fairlie (it is tempting to call him Mr Fairway, but that would be just plain wrong) had just been lauded by the Cateys (Best Chef in the UK) and the National Restaurant Awards (Best in Scotland), adding to a whole jumble of silver and glassware on the mantelpiece that rivalled the heft of golf trophies outside. It helps to serve fine ingredients with a short carte du vin which offers wines that are fascinating, rather than just expensive. The ambience is grown up and dressed up, with celebrities. Scotland’s poshest totty swan about. Kilts are worn, and not just by Americans.

He knows his onions so well that he nicked Raymond Blanc’s vegetable gardener from Le Manoir to grow his own in a Victorian walled garden

Fairlie himself is a local boy but his stellar career (no telly, leaving aside a single visit to his kitchen by Masterchef wannabes), has taken in Le Crillion, EuroDisney, and Boodles. His forte is to take big global flavours and marry them with Scotland’s famous larder of shellfish and game, vegetables and fruits (the world’s best raspberries are grown just a few miles away), enticing the Rollers and Bentleys to purr all the way to his front door. He knows his onions so well that he nicked Raymond Blanc’s vegetable gardener from Le Manoir to grow his own in a Victorian walled garden and created an entirely separate Menu du Marché.

Amuses-bouches are dainty: three different coloured heritage carrots so tiny I felt a pang of guilt on eating them, served with a very adult, punchy fennel cream; a translucent tomato consommé poured over miniature vegetables and home-made bread, the butter fresh and the salt from the Outer Hebrides.

The kitchen gets it. So does the sommelier. A luscious, sensually soft ballotine of foie gras with apricot puree and honeyed yoghurt comes not with a Sauternes or Barsac, which would overpower with sweetness, but with a delicate Jurançon Moelleux whose undertones of apricot and honey hit a spot I didn’t even know I had.

it’s the shell that’s smoked over whisky barrel chips so when the cloche is raised, a waft of smokiness is released

A miniature quilt of pasta with fresh peas and crowdie (Scottish cheese) may sound workaday, but it gets top luxe award thanks to the umami of parmesan and summer truffle shaved at the table, partnered with a fruity, fragrant red – a Spätburgunder Von Buhl from Pfalz, Germany, which gives it the swoon factor in spades. Oddly, the lobster and Krug dish – the fresh Scottish crustacean at its peak, partnered with the King of champagnes – didn’t do it for me. A great pity, because I had been looking forward to the “home smoked” lobster. In fact, it’s the shell that’s smoked over whisky barrel chips so when the cloche is raised, a waft of smokiness is released. It comes with a spiky lime and herb butter.

The main was Gartmorn Farm Duck, followed by a little more Crowdie, and then those “local raspberries”. They really are the best in the world: Gleneagles knows it, and serves them unadorned, bursting with sweetness. Just to drive it home – and to illustrate the versatility of my least favourite vegetable – there’s also a dollop of raspberry sorbet, made sweeter still with the addition of beetroot.

It was just a shame about that lobster. I’d have preferred the Grande Cuvéeas a fizzy little interlude of its own, then enjoyed the shellfish with a more workaday Gewürztraminer. Now, that really would have been par for…

God. I’ll be wearing a Pringle diamond jumper next. C

Restaurant Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles Hotel, Auchterarder PH3 1NF
01764 694267; andrewfairlie.co.uk

Derek Guthrie flew with British Airways from London City Airport to Edinburgh