Craig Grozier was an early pioneer of hyper-local foraging and bringing ancient Scots techniques of fermenting, dry-ageing, pickling and preserving to contemporary cuisine. When we first met in 2009 and he was chef at the late-lamented Heart Buchanan deli kitchen in Glasgow’s west end, he introduced me to his home-aged pine oil and, later, his ground-breaking hare blood custard (a savoury sauce made with the blood of a small Perthshire hare mixed with local juniper berries and gin and cooked with cream to accompany his Perthshire hare haunch dish for a pop-up dinner at Studio93 in Glasgow). Since then he has collaborated with many of Scotland’s most progressive chefs and as a freelance consultant, working mainly with the Bruichladdich distillery on Islay. Now, for the first time in 26 years of cooking, he has established his own restaurant Fallachan Kitchen in Glasgow. It’s immediately clear that the meticulous research and development he is known for continues apace.
Fallachan Kitchen is situated under the railway arches that run along the River Clyde in an area that, thanks mainly to the funky SWG3 arts and music venue - a group of red-brick warehouses around a former galvaniser’s yard - comes with the indelible stamp of industrial chic.
I love that we are greeted at Fallachan - whose open kitchen is on the same level as its big communal dining table - to the soundtrack of the Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go?
I know there is no turning back from my first sip of the signature Dirty Fig Martini, whose sliver of unripe fig foraged from a West End garden and fermented in a salt and whey solution convincingly echoes the taste of green olive. Briny, sharp, cloudy and cold, it is an appetite-sharpening wake-up call for what is to come.
A dinky rustic ceramic pot bears a flavoursome broth of grilled ceps that have been slow-cooked overnight. Wee cylinders of pasta made with old house sourdough pulverised into flour and bound with beef fat add texture - and interest. This mouthful of autumn comfort (described by our dining neighbours as “posh Bovril”) is paired with a warm choux truffle bun that surprises with its sharp centre of Medlar preserve and topping of a Winslade cheese and East Lothian truffle. To describe this delicious duet as delivering umami doesn’t do it justice. It really is a flavour trip in its own right.
A lighter-than-light butter made with house crème fraîche inoculated with the wash from the Bruichladdich distilling process tastes like super-charged mature cheese but has the mouthfeel of spun silk. It simply slides onto our dark Octomore sourdough, made using a 200-year-old German starter and whose malt is sourced directly from an Islay farmer.
And then comes what I dub 'essence of Grozier': a plate of cured meats and house pickles that showcases chef’s skill with charcuterie, gained from his time in France, Spain and Italy. A flush of mesmerising flavours start with dry-cured blood sausage of wild Scottish spices, mushrooms, house Bere barley miso and back fat that is surprisingly aromatic; moves to a salami of Islay hare with flowering currant leaf; the thinnest slices of an Islay pork coppa, and cured mangalitsa pork belly with juniper, whose glistening layer of fat melts exquisitely in the mouth. Savoured with preserved green strawberry, fermented sea leek, pickled blackcurrant leaf and fermented white asparagus, I could stop right here.
A dish dotted with white crab dressed with brown meat in dulse and horseradish mustard changes the pace. Its smoked cobnut sauce and Jerusalem artichokes with brined quince are unusual in both flavour and texture, delivering hints of pan-Asian influences. This is followed by a meaty grilled Barra scallop, split in two and served with a sauce made from rose root, scallop skirt and squash trim, finished with rose hip purée - and topped with an awesome tuna ham of the first Bluefin tuna caught in Scottish waters last year. Sweet, salty and sublime.
Another change of gear is signalled by a crown of beautifully cooked Borders partridge with red kale, chanterelles and Lingonberry mostardo complete with a foam of partridge offal, mead and barley koji. But what really has diners gasping is the unannounced addition KFP or, as chef puts it, Kelvinside Fried Partridge. This is a whole leg glazed in birch sap and birch vermouth, and dotted with black walnuts pickled in Tennents lager. You simply have to pick it up and lose yourself in the moment.
Dessert is simply named Epicure Apple; its base a caramelly set cream, a kind of cheesecake/crème brûlée blend, achieved by cooking out whey to get brown cheese curds. Served frozen, the complex flavours gradually reveal themselves as it thaws. Topped with a tuille of dried apple over apple balls, puffed caramelised barley and caramelised apple sauce seasoned with yeast, it tastes like a grown-up toffee apple, without the cloying sweetness.
The Fallachan experience is like taking a journey back to the future with a thoughtful, highly intelligent driver. From under that old railway arch, this is urban Glasgow gastronomy at the highest level.
Fallachan Kitchen: Open for Thursday, Friday and Saturday dinner at 7 pm; Saturday lunch at 12.30 pm. kitchen@fallachandining.co.uk Arch 15, 8 Eastvale Place, Glasgow.
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