Food&Drink News&Reviews
Zique and ye shall find Necessity, and supermarkets, are the mothers of reinvention in the fine-food landscape of Glasgow’s West End, as Allan Brown discovers
SIDE DISHES NEWS TO NIBBLE ON
AN EXCHANGE
PROGRAMME between promising Scottish chefs and students
from the Lycée hôtelier of Dinard in Brittany will see a special Franco-Scottish pop-up restaurant take take over The Hub on Saturday 31 March. Tickets cost £35 and should be booked with the Institut Français on 0131 225 5366.
EDINBURGH- BASED FOOD WRITER Joanna Blythman’s new book hits the shelves on 1 March. What to Eat cuts through the nutritional and
ethical complexities that seem to surround so much of the food we eat, offering sound advice on most things from carrots to chocolate.
REGULAR WATCHERS of The List’s food and drink pages will be aware that spring means it’s time for our annual Eating & Drinking Guide covering all the places to eat worth knowing about in Edinburgh, Glasgow and their surrounding areas. The 2012 edition – our 19th annual guide – is out on 25 April.
T here’s one guaranteed way to get the proprietors of delicatessens snapping their grissini in fury – and that’s to open a branch of Waitrose nearby. The upscale chain acts like Kryptonite on proximate independent operations, its economies of scale meaning there’s nobody it can’t undercut on gorgeous little snacky things and ethically sourced plovers’ eggs.
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Such has been the fate of Delizique. Since 2001 the chi-chi deli on Hyndland Street was first port of call whenever westenders developed an itch only nibbed pistachios could scratch. Then, in 2009, Waitrose opened on Byres Road and overnight the business of shifting Yuzu marmalade became a whole lot stickier.
The response, eventually, has been to scale down the operation’s retail side and to reclaim the space for a sit-in café/pizzeria. A gorgeous and snacky pizzeria, of course: you don’t get toppings of Majorcan spreading chorizo at Domino’s. Decoratively, there’s a mock al fresco feel with rustic furniture and a sturdy olive tree slap in the middle of the room. Mhairi Taylor has taken the menu of her ever- popular Cafezique next door and rejigged it for those requiring a quicker or a more modest experience. There’s a lengthy inventory of nibbles to start, priced averagely around £3 – mini sausage
32 THE LIST 1–29 Mar 2012
Surprising compatibility of pizza and popcorn Without a drinks licence (for now)
rolls with degrees from Oxbridge, hummus, pâtés and ‘crudities with lemony crème fraiche’. There’s also a range of breakfast items – pancakes and croissants baked in the busy open kitchen – plus the deli’s own sourdough bread and open boards of cheeses and meats. Desserts are the deli’s selection of cakes, scones, tarts, meringues and pastries.
But the pizzas are the main event. The style here is small and concentrated. They’re £7 to eat in (£6 to take away) and they’re not much bigger than a seven-inch single. But they’re loaded with with the kinds of intense, well-bred flavours in which the Zique marque specialises, most notably the Italian sausage and fennel and the puttanesca, better known as a pasta dish incorporating anchovies, olives and capers. Sadly the plovers’ eggs pizza doesn’t yet feature. But that can only be a matter of time.
DELIZIQUE
70-72 Hyndland Street, Glasgow, G11 5PT 0141 339 2000
Mon–Wed 9am–6.30pm; Thu–Sat 9am–9.30pm Ave. price two-course meal: £10
SHOP WINDOW
FANTOOSH FISH 537 Great Western Road, West End, Glasgow Kelvinbridge’s indie food shops continue to battle the ubiquitous metromarket armed with speciality meats, cheeses, fruit & veg, and now fresh fish and shellfish. Meaning a bit flashy, Fantoosh is exactly that, topping their own immaculate display of sustainably sourced local seafood and seasonal meats with various home-made soups, broths and pâtés.