• 2 days ago
We visited The Clarence, the latest neighbourhood place from the owners of Cail Bruich and Brett. A restaurant and bar in Hyndland, there's classic pub and brasserie dishes, served in a stylish but relaxed dining room with space to sit in the bar and order some drinks. Here's what you can expect from the menu.
Transcript
00:00We're at The Clarence with Josh McCormick and we're going to have a quick chat about the menu here.
00:07We're sat in the pub area, there's also a dining room. What is the kind of mix of what you do here
00:14in terms of food and drink? Tell me a bit about the room. So downstairs, this area here that we're
00:20currently in, we're trying to make it as accessible as possible with the locals in mind.
00:25So focus on cocktails, draft beers, whether that's a pint of Guinness, lager, now our wines by the
00:33glass, champagne and then there's also a lovely pub snacks menu there as well. And we wanted that
00:39to kind of continue with a similar vibe upstairs to the restaurant with the menu they have up there.
00:44Still trying to make it as accessible as possible, so there's some things like British pub classics,
00:50some French brasserie classics like beef tartare, you've got a chicken Kiev, sticky toffee pudding,
00:56things like that, that even though it's kind of simple food, it still tastes absolutely delicious
01:01and is very well executed. So that's the type of vibe that we're going for downstairs and upstairs
01:07just now. What do you think is some of the more popular dishes? It's quite hard to say just now,
01:13we have had like such a variety, but so far the chicken Kiev is the big one, because even myself,
01:20I absolutely love a chicken Kiev. It's a classic. Then you've got Sunday roast at weekends as well.
01:23The Sunday roast at the weekend is something that we knew would do well, but how well it's done so
01:29far is just this, punching above its weight. It's such great value, it's currently two courses for
01:35£30, so a choice of starters and then a choice of main courses. The Sunday roast is currently
01:41chateaubriand, so the value is exceptional what you're going to get, and the other choices are
01:45monkfish on the bone, but done the same way as the Sunday roast sides etc, so it's a pretty
01:53kind of cool play on a Sunday roast without the fish option. And you could just come in here,
01:57you could get a seat, you could have a few glasses of wine and a snack as well, right? Yeah, so the bar
02:02itself is pretty much like walk-ins, it's walk-ins only, it's not bookable, and we just want to keep
02:08it that way. It's just easier and more accessible that way.
02:15It kind of feels like a neighbourhood place, but probably a neighbourhood place that you'd like to
02:20travel to as well, right? Yeah, 100%. We do have that element, there's people we've noticed that are,
02:25we kind of have like a range of like an hour's distance away that we notice that people come
02:29from, so whether that's down from where I'm from in Ayrshire or Helensborough or the outskirts of
02:34Edinburgh, there's still people that are wanting to travel, even just for the bar aspect of things,
02:39and then also the local community is a big part of this, what we're trying to do here as well.
02:44Okay, I was interested to find out a bit more about your favourite places in Glasgow,
02:51and your kind of Glasgow experience and things like that. So what are some of your favourite
02:57areas if you're going around for like food and drink? I do kind of, I do tend to stick to the
03:02West End, because I'm out of Bray Head, so it's not far from here, and there's a lot of places that
03:08I love to eat in the West End, I love to go to drink, it just depends on what's happening.
03:13One of my favourite restaurants for a quick bite, I would say, is the Westside Tavern down in
03:18Dumbarton Road. I think it's just a nice place to be, nice music, nice atmosphere, pretty chilled out,
03:25nice pizzas, chicken parm, things like that, good cocktail list, nice beers, so it's good.
03:31I was there like two weeks ago with my family as well, so it's a nice place to bring
03:35someone on a date, but also a nice place to bring like a family. Yeah, and Highland,
03:40you get quite a mix of folk coming in here as well, because like there would be a lot of different
03:46people from different backgrounds that live in the area and things like that. Yeah, definitely, we have
03:52locals, the demographic ranges massively in the Bar area, we've noticed that.
03:57Friday and Saturday night is just such a mixed bag, whether that's people that have been with
04:03us for a wee while, like coming in since shucks, or like young professionals as well, we're trying
04:08to cater towards them, especially in the midweek menu now, as we have an early menu which is
04:14two courses for 28 and then three for 35, and that's aimed at people that maybe just don't want
04:20to cook that night, because I know that I've been in that position quite often and I like to eat out
04:24and maybe you can't be bothered, you don't want a takeaway, you want to just nip out for a quick
04:28bite and the value's there for that as well. Okay, we're coming into the spring shortly, I just look
04:33out the window and it starts raining, so maybe not as imminent as you might imagine, but spring's a
04:38great time for, you know, trying out different types of wine with dishes and things like that.
04:43Are there any wines that are on your list at the moment that you would recommend that we have a
04:47look at? Yeah, always two wines that, well two whites by the glass I always recommend.
04:53One's the Defour, it's maybe not some like a grape variety, it's not a combination of grape varieties
04:59that many people know, but it works so well if you're into like a dry fruity wine, it's almost
05:04like a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, but it's from the south of France, and then another one that we
05:09do is Malagasyia from Greece, again a grape that's maybe not well known, or and not a lot of people
05:15are drinking Greek wines just now, but this is like something completely different, it's done
05:19on the lees, it has this almost like peachy, apricotty, yogurty type nose to it, and it's very
05:27like interesting, but also tastes delicious, and it's a nice easy drinker. You move to Glasgow,
05:32you work in hospitality, that's something that, you know, happens quite a lot, people move here
05:37to work, not just because they want to have a job through university or things like that,
05:42but because they see this is a good place to start their career. Do you think that Glasgow
05:46Hospitality in general is a good place to be if you want to try and get your training and get your
05:53reputation in hospitality? A hundred percent, I think it stands in great stead. I'm originally
05:58from Troon myself, and I worked at some nice places in Troon, but then there's only so far
06:03you can go in a kind of smaller town, so the natural progression is to go up to Glasgow,
06:09and I've done that myself with Kilbrook. I was dining there quite often about 10 years ago or so,
06:15and I really liked what the guys were doing, and then moving up here, being in that environment,
06:22the hospitality scene, everyone knows each other, which is a positive, it's great.

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