The Newport Restaurant
1 High Street, Newport-on-Tay
01382 541449732
Lunch: £30-£35
Food rating: 8½/10
I DON'T watch Masterchef, or any other competitive cooking or baking programme. I can’t take those "this will change my life” speeches, the fake tenderness with which the losers are dismissed, the stage-managed pregnant pauses, the obligatory bursting into tears, and I have a strong allergic reaction to co-presenter Gregg Wallace. So it was news to me that a Scottish chef, Jamie Scott, had won Masterchef 2014. But what I do listen out for is reliable feedback about developments on the food scene, and when friends flagged up that the Newport Hotel had changed hands and had a good new chef in Jamie Scott, I sat up and paid attention.
Now, Newport is a charming place, and the hotel is an interesting enterprise. Painted white and elephant grey, it’s a stone’s throw from the beach. As well as the bar, restaurant and a few rooms, it has a chiropractic clinic and an art gallery, an unusual, rather creative mixed-use endeavour. Its situation is exceptional: the two-floor restaurant has an entirely glass wall offering a striking vista over the turbulent River Tay to Dundee, one that takes in Newport’s working harbour, and the rail bridge.
Even on a grey, moody Sunday the restaurant was a nice place to be, and lunch, if you can get a booking – we had to wait until 3.15pm – is a genuine bargain: £30 for three courses, including a free glass of champagne, and nibbles that amounted to a starter in themselves. All prime ingredients too, quite different from the low-effort, cheap-ingredient fixed price menus that you’ll encounter elsewhere.
Without doubt my favourite dish was the hake brandade, which arrived before the starters proper. Opalescent moist flakes stacked up in a voluminous liquid, somewhere between a foam and a mayonnaise in consistency, that had a faint salty smokiness to it. Emerald green oil (parsley?) insinuated its gleaming way up through the foam. A lattice of chives and confetti of crisp puffed rice, or some similar grain, added further tongue-pleasing textural dimensions. The brandade came with ragged grey crackers that looked like miniaturised driftwood and tasted like bonfire night chestnuts roasted on a brazier. What a well-conceived dish! The sticky honey crust on the hot hazelnut rolls studded with plump raisins found a foil in salty butter, which tasted cultured and homemade, a perfect partner for the biscuity, yeasty champagne.
In both starter and main course category, there was a clear winner. Neat, athletic Mallaig scallops, immaculately fried, teamed up with emollient strands of velvety tongue, golden-roasted salsify, crisp leek, and a rich meat glaze made a dazzling success of surf and turf. A dish of exuberantly fresh fillets of red mullet, buttery fried purple sprouting broccoli, and not one but two oyster fritters, with dots of apple puree, a creamy substance, and a brick-red sauce that tasted like essence of French soupe de poissons, romped effortlessly through the finishing line. Meat dishes? I’m puzzled as to why you’d serve warm breast of mallard duck with a mash of cold turnip. A mustardy presence and capers stood up to the gamey meat but I couldn’t help but be disappointed with the neep. A thick slice of local veal appeared to have been cooked like a steak, but had too much chewy sinew to suit this treatment; its accompanying slow-cooked cheek was miles better. And in this main course the visually beautiful vegetables needed rethinking: over-vinegary pickled kohlrabi, and a fiddly, hollowed out carrot baton with swirls of orange purée.
Desserts were sound. A gravity-defying apple soufflé stood up to attention as cinnamon ice cream and caramel custard accentuated its butterscotch personality. Hot, 75 per cent dark chocolate fondant, immaculately liquid at core, with zingy passion fruit ice cream, delicate cocoa nib wafer, and chunks of Aero-like white and dark chocolate, worked well.
So the Newport is potentially brilliant and tremendously good value for the calibre of cooking. I’d counsel more restraint with squirts from squeezy bottles, a strategic simplification of some dishes, and reigning in the Masterchef urge for a wow factor.
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