Scots-Sikh celebrity chef Tony Singh is to fulfil his lifelong ambition of opening a restaurant in Glasgow.
The Leith-born presenter of BBC 2's The Incredible Spice Men, who has also featured on The Great British Menu and Saturday Kitchen, will launch Tasty at the Alea casino at Springfield Quay in the new year.
The mid-priced "Gallus" street-food style menu will feature Singh's idiosyncratic mash-up of Scottish favourites, such as chicken tikka pies, poutine (chips and cheese curds) and sweeties like salted caramel teacakes, bubble gum marshmallows and spiced millionaire's shortbread. There will also be a high-end "Glasvegas" menu featuring lobster thermidor and a range of steaks. All ingredients will be locally sourced where possible.
The restaurant itself, currently being constructed, will have an "urban edge" look complete with designer graffitti and the bright colours of the chef's ancestral home of the Punjab to highlight the chef's Scots and Asian roots.
Mr Singh, who lives in Edinburgh, will spend much of his time in Glasgow, where his mother was born and brought up. He has appointed James Hardy, formerly of One Devonshire Gardens under Andrew Fairlie, and former head chef at Nick Nairn's Glasgow restaurant Nairns, as his head chef at Tasty, which will be open for dinner seven nights a week.
He has never gone down the Indian curry restaurant route, because he doesn't not believe their cooking is authentic. He sold his fine-dining Edinburgh restaurant Oloroso in 2013 and is not convinced Michelin starred cooking is what punters are looking for. He said: "I'm so over fine-dining and I think most people are. My pop-up restaurant at the Apex hotel during the Edinburgh Festival this year was very busy, and proved that mine is the kind of food people want.
"My menu at Tasty is not top-end but it's fun, top quality and tasty food that will capture the dynamic vibe of the Glasgow eating-out scene.
"Casinos are where adults go to play and they want to have fun. To people who think casinos aren't for them, I say: 'Dinnae be scared.'"
He added: "Opening a restaurant in Glasgow feels like I'm coming home. It's something I've always wanted to do and I can't wait to let everyone here have a taste of my mash-up menu. We may even put a Glasgow salad on the menu."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel