Saturday night and I’m in a taxi to an old galvaniser’s yard and warehouses that once serviced the Clyde. Now they house the galvanising 21st-century stuff: gigs, clubs, pop-ups, studios, exhibitions, workshops, and — I can hold back no longer — the most exciting chef’s table in Scotland.
The location is part of the thrill. I remember coming to SWG3 when it opened in the mid-2000s and even taxi drivers didn’t know the name of the street. There’s still no passing trade. You have to commit to coming, which many do for all sorts of reasons. Put it this way — it’s the first time I’ve been to a fine-dining restaurant where the taxi driver assumes I’m off to Bongo’s Bingo, a night of “rave intervals, awkward dance offs, big money and ridiculous prizes”.
Fallachan Kitchen seats 12 and is open on select nights a month. It’s located under an old railway arch, which means our scenic journey through multiple courses is rhythmically punctuated by the overhead rumble of passing trains. How apt. There’s industrial chic, and then there’s actually industrial.
The communal table is positioned in the midst of the action with the pass within stroking distance. This is immersive dining in the literal sense, up against the flames leaping from the Japanese grill and the whirr of the ventilation system. So immersive that the next day my clothes smell of smoke with base notes of hogget fat. Some might find the sensory squall of it all (the music is also banging) a bit much. I love it.
Mastermind of all this is Craig Grozier, a private chef who has been on the scene in Scotland, and beyond, for more than two decades. Thank God he has gone public. His food is innovative, technical, serious yet playful (thoroughly Glaswegian then), and deeply grounded in the Scottish land and surrounding waters. I’m talking walnuts pickled in Tennant’s and woodruff foraged from the slopes of Kelvingrove Park. Terroir is a thing, also yeast. Grozier has a decade-long relationship with Islay’s renegade whisky distillery Bruichladdich, the fruits of which are dropped through the menu like apples in an orchard. Or, to be more Fallachan about it, brambles in Queen’s Park.
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Two moments remind me of Mark Donald’s cooking at Glenturret Lalique. First, a sourdough made with malted barley from Bruichladdich’s Octomore whisky, yielding soft dark bread, rye-like in nuttiness, eaten with butter made using the wash from the whisky. Bread and butter that tastes exactly like the smell of a distillery wash-house? Funky, in both senses! Second, a surprise fried haggis sandwich (not on the menu) made with the offal from Free Company hogget, supercharged with horseradish mustard and frosted with Corra Linn cheese. How naughty! Dirty even, and reminiscent of the “knuckle sandwich” I ate at Glenturret Lalique, which has just become the second restaurant in Scotland to be awarded a second Michelin star. Praise, then, doesn’t come any higher.
I’ve come alone but the chat flows like the water of life. The atmosphere is charged with the kind of energy made by lucky people eating great food under an achingly cool railway arch. But it’s not just Glasgow folk in the know: there are diners in from Troon, Peebles and Leith (yours truly). Grozier and his four-strong team — one ex-Cail Bruich, another ex-the Gannet — talk to everyone, working the table, mucking in at the pass or serving when required. It’s a thrill to watch them work, but also entirely possible to ignore them and get on with eating. And drinking: the pairings are as thoughtfully sourced as the food, whether an orange, or skin-contact, wine from Georgia or a glass of sparkling jasmine tea introduced half way as a palate cleanser.
• Lucky Yu, Edinburgh, restaurant review — Lucky us indeed
There are many outstanding moments. Consider a fillet of John Dory topped with a pale, sweet, discreet mousse made from the fish’s head, pepper dulse seaweed, and Shetland scallops. Dark, jammy Bare Bones chocolate shot through with the sweet earthiness of Jerusalem artichoke. Hogget, smoking on the grill when we arrive and wafting like a refrain through the meal. In a cup of meadow-fresh, savoury Scotch-ish broth made with Bere barley (an ancient grain cultivated in Orkney and also used by Bruichladdich). Grilled with a saline sauce that tastes exactly like a beachcomb on Islay: oysters, sugar kelp, a garlicky alium tangle of sea leeks. What beautiful, site-specific storytelling.
The fifth course is an idiosyncratic plate of meats, ranging from short rib from Balcaskie estate cured in Grozier’s lamb marmite, to Islay hare cured with Bruichladdich’s the Botanist gin and flowering currant leaf. Grozier introduces it as his “lockdown charcuterie” because he made his first curing chamber during the pandemic, using the storm doors of his flat and a humidifier. No, I don’t get it either, but apparently it was challenging for his vegetarian neighbours, who happened to be members of The Pastels band. Food stories don’t get more Glasgow than this and as a single dish, it sums up what Fallachan is about: a sensory dining experience that immerses you not just in the kitchen, but in Scotland itself. It’s only February but I think I’ve found my restaurant of the year.
@times_foodie
How it rated
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Food 10
Service 10
Atmosphere 10
What I ate
£85 menu
Cumbrae oyster, Yorkshire rhubarb, Alexander’s, dulse
Marafona potato, sea lettuce, peat smoked John Dory roe
Hogget and Bere barley, koji brose, sweet clover
Octomore sourdough, whisky wash butter
Fallachan charcuterie, house pickles
Kinlochbervie John Dory, pepper dulse, neep, wild quince
Free Company hogget, sugar kelp, black walnut, sea leek, Islay oyster sauce
Preserved cherry plum, woodruff yoghurt, Scot’s pine cone
Bare Bones Madagascar chocolate, puffed barley, sunflower seed praline, Jerusalem artichoke, grapefruit leaf
Bere barley miso caramel
What I drank
£50 drinks pairing
Gusbourne estate, blanc de noir, 2019, Kent
Orgo, Rkatsitell, 2021, Georgia
Domaine de Chevelerie 2022, Franco de Porc, Loire
Lustau, rare cask cream sherry NV, Jerez
Total
£135
Arch 15, 8 Eastvale Place, Glasgow; fallachandining.co.uk
