Coast,104 George Street, Oban

Outside it’s high tide, mid-afternoon, seagulls flying by as mid-October waves boom. Yet even this late in the season, with The Mod in full glorious swing - kids and choirs, pipers and dancers, buskers on the esplanade, throngs on the pavement, crowds still in the cafes and The Corran Halls full to car-park bursting - Oban looks vibrant and bloody beautiful.

There wasn’t a single seat left in Renato’s chip shop as we walked by on the way up George Street; I went to give Renato a wave, but it’s his son. I think. Man I’m getting old. Coast, a few doors further up, looked absolutely dead certain to be full to me anyway.

But then Jane had phoned Nicola, who spoke to someone else, who spoke to someone else, and we had got this table. One of the high ones at the window, amidst those Farrow and Ballesque colours, beside the soothing warming radiator.

And suddenly my plans to drop by my sister’s at Ardchattan on the way back to Glasgow this afternoon have been put on ice.

We’re eating? Seafood generally. Halibut mainly. For me anyway. Big, fat and pearly white flakes of that halibut sliding apart at the gentlest push only to be then rammed into creamy pea and spinach risotto and that self-same precariously loaded fork side-swiped through a mussel and saffron sauce on the way to. Well, you know where it’s going.

Occasionally, I’ll mix all this up by using my fingers, yes eek, to take up one of those deep-fried ribbons of salty and crunchy leek.

Across from me? Jim has the seared fillet of cod, with little sweet Italian orzo underpinning that, salty samphire throughout and a freshly chopped tomato and herb dressing artfully scattered across everything into glistening mounds.

It’s Jane incidentally, who  knows Nicola. Nicola who I have now worked out (by reading the menu d’uh) is the owner. Nicola who came up when we first came in and had some chat about what was fresh and what was still available.

I, of course, know nobody. Jane, anyway, has ordered baked sole, gussied up with harissa, wild mushroom and buttery charlotte potatoes. We’re playing that marks for food game, as we go along, Jim even admits he has filmed himself trying to make the perfect scrambled eggs, how we laugh.

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But marks are high. Even as I eat my halibut though I am thinking: well this isn’t the way this afternoon was meant to go.  I had been planning on catching some of that Mod action before leaving town, maybe one of the piping heats, something I could just wander into without a ticket.

Before doing that? A single haddock from Renato’s perhaps? Then the chat turned to food and then someone suggested a quick sit-down lunch and even then I thought it was going to be at some hot new Italian. A quick pasta perhaps.

Even when we walked in here and looked at these two menus I was thinking: I’ll eat from the lunchtime specials. But... well. Seafood. At the seaside. In Scotland. Let’s go for it.

If we fast forward here I can exclusively reveal this. We’ll have, ahem, desserts too. I’ll roll back to Glasgow. A warm Bakewell tart it was; yes made from scratch in here the waitress will say, with vanilla ice-cream. A short, short crumbly, salty pastry enriching it, a treacly sweetness sealing the deal.

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It will be a three-course lunch, in fact. Because there have been starters too. Seared scallops, absolutely gotta in Oban, Stornoway black pudding, sherry dressing. The scallops with just enough of that crust searing to hit the already-looks-delicious-and-I-haven’t-tasted-it button.

I’ll have a shelled crab salad, served on toasted soda bread, an appley, creme fraiche mix pulling it all together, enough honest-to-goodness sweet white crab meat throughout to give it a real seaside impact.

Now. It’s years since I’ve been in Coast. Years probably since I have sat down for a full-fat three-course lunch. And probably years til I get time for the next one. But this was good. 

Coast 
104 George Street, Oban
Tel: 01631-569900
Open: Seven days

Menu: unashamedly sea-foody as it should be given where it is; langoustine, halibut, sole, scallops, cod with a smart Scottish style, lighter lunchtime menu too. 4

Service: Very pleasant, but then I was eating with people who knew the owner, very professional, warm. 5

Price: How many times do I say this: it’s seafood, in Scotland, it’s never going to be cheap. Starters were £12.50, cod £27.50, halibut £34. 3

Atmosphere: Soothing colours, comfortable seats, plain wooden tables; does the relaxed casual vibe very well. 4

Food: The fish was all handled beautifully, seared perfectly when needed, the sauces deft, the presentation lovely, one criticism? Be bolder with the seasoning? 8 

Ron Mackenna reviews restaurants for The Herald. He always pays his own way and never announces his presence at the restaurant. He also never accepts invitations or freebies – which is why you can trust his reviews