For a long time, if you asked for a restaurant recommendation in Glasgow, the answer would be that trains run regularly to Edinburgh from Queen Street station. I’ve always thought that stereotype unfair, yet it’s true that the mantle of decent scran in Scotland’s true capital was long held up almost entirely by the Ubiquitous Chip.
The Chip launched in 1971 and was considered one of the first places to do justice to the glories of Scottish cuisine. You’re not getting any jokes from me about “the glories of Scottish cuisine”. They exist; Scotland is blessed with some of the finest raw materials in the world. But at the time — as the Chip’s own website puts it — “this idea was thought to be revolutionary or even plain daft”. Everyone now boasts “locally sourced”; the Chip was one of the first.
But 18 months ago, alarming news drifted south of the border. The Chip had been sold! Sold to, of all the miseries, the pub chain behemoth Greene King. The horror. An act of cultural vandalism. Might as well book your tickets to Edinburgh now.
Well, I’m not giving up that easily. It was my dad’s birthday, so the option presented itself to kill two birds with one stone. You’d think it’d be glamorous having a restaurant critic in the family, but all they get is, “Happy birthday, Dad. Let’s go and see if this beloved gem is a bit crap now.” It’s a miracle I even get invited back for Christmas.
So we find ourselves making our way down quaint little Ashton Lane in the West End: cobbles, fairy lights and — oh, for God’s sake — I’ve stepped in someone’s vomit. It’s barely 6pm. Not that there’s a great time for it, but still. “Served with a warm Glaswegian welcome,” says the Chip’s website. No jokes about that either.
Further down the street we find salvation. The Ubiquitous Chip is truly beautiful, in a way that untold restaurants have tried to replicate and always ended up looking as if they were designed using a flip chart. A vaulted ceiling, dark wooden beams, more fairy lights and a jungle’s worth of green plants hanging from every surface that will take their weight.
To start, a big platter of smoked and cured fish. It’s a dish I’d usually skate over, given it’s largely an assembly job, but here it’s worth dwelling on. Runny, smoky taramasalata — none of the pink, sweet nonsense. Silky anchovies, fresh, flaky mackerel, a good whack of smoked salmon and the fattest mussels I’ve ever encountered. All that for £16. You almost feel as though you’re robbing them.
A platter of smoked and cured fish
Next, roast chicory with hollandaise and a pine nut and crispy onion crumb. Looking at the menu I’d imagined a little drizzle of the sauce, but when it arrives it is pretty much a soup. All the sweetness rightfully lacking from the taramasalata is instead present here. It’s gloopy but in just the right way. A slight film on the top, which probably isn’t technically desirable but works gloriously if you attack it with a hunk of bread.
Roast chicory with hollandaise and a pine nut and crispy onion crumb
My main is less inspiring — ricotta and chestnut croquettes. The good news is that they’re accompanied by a scattering of Brussels sprouts dusted in “brown butter powder” (toasted milk solids, pretty much). The powder gives the sprouts a tempura-like crispness. The base of the squash puree is cold, though, and the rocket garnish miserably flaccid. The croquettes themselves are floury — overwhelmingly so. One is pleasant; two is a chore. Halfway through the course I feel I should be setting up a GoFundMe page to sponsor this endurance challenge.
Ricotta and chestnut croquettes
My dad orders chips just so he can joke there aren’t enough — “they should be everywhere”. He is a dad, after all. For 30 years the Chip refused to serve them. Maybe they should have stuck to this. They are entirely average. Neither thin enough to be crispy nor fat enough to be fluffy: the same plain bridesmaids of every mediocre pub dinner. A quiet disappointment down to their famous name.
Redemption comes in the form of dessert. We share a cranberry and poppyseed trifle, a coconut panna cotta and a clootie dumpling. The clootie is a Burns Night classic. Imagine a Christmas pudding but with ten times the density. Now imagine it’s actually nice. You’d usually expect it with a little whisky in the custard but here it’s eggnog: an inspired move, as the sweetness balances out the sheer force of the stodge.
It’s rather like the Chip itself: warm, hearty, unapologetically Scottish. It isn’t going to change the country’s cuisine again — and to be fair, once is enough — but the Ubiquitous Chip has still got it. And I’m still on speaking terms with my dad.
★★★☆☆
ubiquitouschip.co.uk
