EVEN in a city the size of Glasgow it’s never really been difficult keeping track of new restaurants. Maybe in a particularly heady month in recent years two would open, maybe even three. In the bleakest years of the recession that figure would stretch to two or three over perhaps a whole summer.
Many have been the months when I could safely say there’s absolutely nowhere new in Glasgow, fill the car with petrol and head down the M8 towards Edinburgh. I can remember not that long ago when TripAdvisor listed about 600 restaurants in the wider city – and that included every pub that sold a pie, every kebab shop that had a plastic stool and even many places that didn’t even fit in either of the above lofty categories.
What tourists thought of these places when they wandered in I still chuckle over. Today, right now in fact as I write this, TripAdvisor lists 2186 restaurants for the city. That’s a pretty staggering increase, seemingly overnight. Of course that list is still padded with places that perhaps don’t quite fit the idea you and I may have of a restaurant. I may be doing Number 12 on the list a disservice, but I’ve never heard anyone say they’re off to the renowned whisky bar the Pot Still, on Hope Street, for a slap-up. It’s also full of restaurants that flare up the lists from nowhere.
Currently No1 in Glasgow’s 2000-plus restaurants is a steakhouse called Tiffany’s that hasn’t been on the tip of anyone I know’s tongue. Or mentioned in a single reader’s email. Come to think of it I’ve never been to Number 13 on the list either, somewhere called the Mini Grill. But hey, what do I know? Whether you and I believe TripAdvisor’s rankings or not, and I generally don’t, it’s always been a pretty useful indicator of the number of restaurants in the city.
What it’s not been able to do is say which of these restaurants are new. Finding new restaurants has always been a hit and miss affair made even more complicated by the problem that there is at least one major restaurant website which regularly proclaims old and tired restaurants as new. Now I say finding new restaurants was a hit or miss affair, but it was never a serious problem because there simply weren’t enough new restaurants for them to be kept quiet for long. Someone would always email, so-and-so would mention in passing, word gets about. That’s no longer the case.
For the first time in a decade of restaurant reviewing in Glasgow and beyond I sat down this week with at least half a dozen new restaurants to consider in the city. Hurrah, you may think. Except restaurants are currently opening so fast that there isn’t enough time for word of mouth to help filter in the good ones. Given the internet lets everyone shamelessly self publicise every restaurant journey is now a shot in the dark. A problem. But undoubtedly a good one.
Ron Mackenna is The Herald's restaurant reviewer
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