My wife booked Cail Bruich for my 60th birthday for ourselves and our son and daughter, who came from Edinburgh and London respectively, for their old man’s birthday! I’ve now eaten in 5 Michelin-starred restaurants in various places in the UK and Europe and this...has been the best.
The staff are attentive without being intrusive, you never had to wait to have them top up your water, they fold napkins when you leave to go to the loo etc. The linen, crockery and cutlery are all good, and this is just as you would expect of a Michelin-starred restaurant.
However, you go mainly for the quality of the food, and it is simply excellent.
We went for lunch. It’s a 7-course tasting menu but in effect it’s 9 courses because there’s an amuse bouche (a course in itself - see photo) and little tarts and Madeleines when they come with your bill, but given what you’ve eaten already, you struggle with these at the end. I honestly don’t know how people can eat the additional cheese course too.
Our son, Matt, is a chef so he can dissect a meal, break it down and explain all the intricacies which would otherwise have been lost on me. All I can say is that it was fabulous. Every course is a work of art and we obviously all voted for which course we thought was best. A hard call but my personal favourite was the mushroom raviolo with a rich truffle sauce and a wonderful bread to dip into the sauce (see the photo with the bread in the background). The bread is too much for this course alone but Matt explained that they deliberately leave it so that you have it for subsequent sauces - so tasty and so clever.
Matt explained that a good ‘front of house’ can gauge each table to pace how quickly courses arrive. In total it was 10 minutes short of 4 hours but we never felt rushed by staff wanting to clear our courses; this allowed us to chat in a relaxed atmosphere, because apart from Christmas we are never together as a family. Although it’s a super-posh restaurant, it’s not at all stuffy or ‘superior’ and this all added to the positive experience.
So far, the only comparable restaurant we have come across in Glasgow is The Gannet (which is cheaper). The presentation at The Gannet is equally as good and the menu is more ‘playful’ but the quality of the food isn’t quite as good. If it’s a special occasion (hey - you’re only 60 once!), then you won’t go wrong with Cail Bruich.More