What I want to do is tell you how entirely brilliant this new addition to the chic-er bit of Sauchiehall Street is, to relate in starry-eyed detail how it’s a glorious, groundbreaking offshoot to increasingly foodie Finnieston. Reception to Ox & Finch on its home turf has been overwhelmingly hagiographic, and I’d like my beloved Glasgow and me to be able to go our merry ways, still the very bosomest of buddies.
But, in all honesty, I can’t. Well, not fully. I’m relaxed about the whole sharing-plates-delivered-when-they’re-ready thing, even though this is always a palaver designed more for restaurateur than for diner. I’m not bothered that it has “borrowed” many of its design tropes from elsewhere – clock those typefaces, the logo, that brown paper placemat/menu. Or that its high-ceilinged room, all tiles and bare brick, make it uncomfortably loud. After all, it has so much going for it: the warm staff, tall beardy chaps and twinkly gals; and, yes, much of the food.
Hanger steak, say: rosy-pink slabs of good meat, surprisingly tender for this cut, crusted with a seductive char. It comes with grilled baby gem (grilled lettuce is so now…) and chimichurri for a fiery, herbal frosting. Or pristine scallops, seared and partnered with chorizo. Seen it before, sure, but the chorizo is Ibérico, a pungent, oily pleasure, and there’s sweetcorn – kernels, puree and delicate blades of corn shoot – to lift the dish out of the ordinary.
Vegetables aren’t overlooked, either: beetroot with creamy goat’s curd – another well-worn look – comes with the roots still warm, so the cheese melts into an unguent over them, plus a scattering of toasted seeds for texture; “new-season heritage potatoes” are rolled around in buttery, toasted oatmeal flecked with parsley. Simple things are done beautifully: crab on sourdough toast with avocado, slivers of red chilli and red grapefruit – if the toast had been spread with some brown meat for savour, this would have been nigh-on perfect.
So all good. There’s an interesting winelist with the odd organic curio, a blackboard with daily specials and superior bread that, at a guess, comes from the city’s estimable Tapa Bakehouse (two slices with butter or olive oil, £2.75). But it’s the chips that do it. I don’t know if these are our old friends McCain, or what are entertainingly known in the catering business as “stealth fries”, but their pallid, floury uniformity suggests something not freshly made in that open kitchen. You’d think a team headed up by the former chef to the McLaren Formula One racing team, with sidekicks trained by the likes of Martin Wishart, could get it together to peel and maybe double-fry a few spuds. Also, why, if you pride yourself on your ingredients, would you cut corners here? It’s not as if Glasgow doesn’t know about deep-frying. Oh, give over: cliches are cliches for a reason.
There are further disappointments. A loose-grained, mealy “house sausage” lolling over smoked ham hock beans seems more Greggs than gourmet. And I like cod fried in panko crumbs served Thai-style in gem lettuce cups for wrapping, with a slaw-y salad sparky with fish sauce and lime; but its chilli sauce tastes bottled.
But then confit pork belly arrives (“dishes are for sharing and will arrive in no particular order”, remember) and it blows us away: sultry pork, long-basted in its own fat, the meat’s innate sweetness jollied along by onion puree and raisins, with capers for a little jolt of acid and salt. And pairing an iced peanut butter parfait with sharp cherry sorbet, a riff on the classic PBJ, is a smart, successful move.
Pusillanimous chips notwithstanding, the hits outweigh the misses. In my early days of doing this gig, I had the temerity to suggest that a local hero was “good for Manchester” and got flamed like prime rump as a consequence. I’m not making that mistake again, I tell the Glaswegian pal. “Hah!” she scoffs. “I eat better and cheaper when I go to London, and you can tell them it was me who said so.”
Ach, the hell with it: Ox & Finch is good for Glasgow. Great, brilliant, excellent even. It is to be celebrated in a city that’s currently burying itself in a dripping pyre of burgers. I like it, and can only apologise for not loving it. I’m wrapping myself in Kevlar as we speak.
• Ox & Finch 920 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, 0141-339 8627. Open all week, noon-10pm. About £25-30 a head, plus drinks and service.
Food 6/10 (chips 0/10)
Atmosphere 6/10
Value for money 7/10
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