12/02/2007

– Joanna Blythman is none too impressed by Tony Borthwick’s Plumed Horse in Leith. Writing in the Sunday Herald she says that the relocation of the restaurant from Castle Douglas to Leith proves that “even award-winning chefs can have their off days”. The restaurant is in a “bad location and ineptly refurbished”, the menu is “severely limited”, she writes, and some dishes were “borderline unpleasant”. Her “overwhelming impression” is that the food is “Michelin cooking circa 1990, atrophied over time”. She concludes that “people will get their bill at the Plumed Horse and conclude that the whole experience does not merit the outlay”.

The Scotsman’s Raymond Travers writes that the food at the Lochgreen House Hotel, in Troon, is one of the venues “biggest attributes”. Executive chef Andrew Costley’s cooking is “simply outstanding”, he writes, and the hotel is an “an ideal spot to enjoy a bit of pampering”.

"Thanks to The Left Bank, creativity is back on the menu in the West End”, writes Emma Cowing in The Scotsman. She swoons over the Glasgow restaurant's “subtle, stylish décor and a laid-back atmosphere”, its “delicious” cocktails and the “truly inventive" menu, where "every single item on your plate has been thoroughly thought through”. The Goan fish curry is “delicious, and marvellously unusual" and she could have ordered her sticky chicken satay skewers “twice as a main course”.

P.S. Have you seen a review this week that you think should be reported on Digest? Let us know at info@allfoodscotland.com