5 Bank Street, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis (01851 700 026). Meal for two, with wine and service, £70-£100
It is my last night on dry land, and outside the restaurant the streets of Stornoway are being washed by a hard summer rain. In the harbour the boats heave and sigh on their moorings, and at the table I sigh and frown over the menu. I want the earth to be steady beneath my feet, but nothing here is as I imagined. None of the dishes are what I expected. Surely, on the eve of going to sea I have the right to expect a little reassurance?
Oh, all right. I'm not exactly Captain Ahab in pursuit of his whale. I honestly am going to sea, but only to about 10 miles of it, in search of the mighty langoustine that throng the sea beds here in their billions. Then I'll come back in again. After seven hours. Still, to this city boy, it feels like my very last night on earth.
So I want my world, or, to be exact, my world view, to be secure, but the Digby Chick is having none of it. Being a patronising, effete London boy I had constructed some vivid fantasy of what a Stornoway restaurant should be: all rugged, rough-hewn wood and stone, platters of steaming seafood which have demanded less cooking than killing, perhaps at a push a jar of mayonnaise. It is the urban boy's fantasy of a coastal restaurant. Instead the Digby Chick is a smart, buzzy modern little bistro selling mostly smart, buzzy modern food, of the sort you could easily find on Islington High Street. There are clean white lines and bronze wood banquettes and slashes of modern art.
And why the hell shouldn't it be like this? The menu is not without its faults, though it is specifically the menu that is the problem, rather than the food it is selling. It is over-written. Fancy restaurant words – timbales, ribbons, reductions, supremes – are splattered around as if there is something that might need apologising for in advance. (What there isn't is any mention of a Digby Chick which, according to Mr Internet, is a Canadian way with herring. No loss; it doesn't sound very nice.) On the plate though it all makes a kind of sense. "Seared curried scallops, smooth apple chutney, Stornoway black pudding and coriander crème fraîche", wasn't quite as exhausting to read as the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but bloody close. What came was two fabulous, well-seasoned local scallops, expertly seared with a disc of equally fabulous blood sausage, with its crisp exterior like the summer crust on a soft marshy bog, and a couple of sauces. Another of a mackerel fritter with seared mackerel, from the set-price menu (£23 for three courses) was let down only by a light hand with the salt. That's always solvable.
If there was a fault with the main courses it was a formulaic approach. Different proteins – monkfish and lamb – came with the same heap of crushed potatoes beneath and a bird's nest of deep-fried carrot strips above. That weakness though was only obvious because they sat side by side. The local lamb, fed to fat on the heather, was a proper piece of meat from an animal that had spent its life doing stuff, and the red-wine sauce didn't overwhelm its flavour. Ditto the monkfish with its slick of seafood cream that spoke of the long boiling of shells and heads. The only part of this that shouted provincialism – and yes, I know it's a pejorative – was the crescent-shaped side dish of vegetables. I've whinged about their superfluity before so I won't bother doing so again.
A sparky lime tart alongside a meringue spiced with stem ginger and coconut, and a chocolate, Baileys and Malteser cheesecake, was as moreish and pornographic as it sounds. I should find out whether it has induced type 2 diabetes within the next week or so. While that set-price menu keeps the bill under control, it is not cheap. Think Islington bistro prices. But, unlike in Islington, the clientele don't make you want to punch them, the waiting staff are attitude free and outside the door is something much nicer. I went to sea a happy man. And then I came back again.
This week Jay has also been eating…
Almonds roasted in their shells and feeling very rustic. Though obviously I'm not, because they came from Waitrose.
Side orders: whining and dining
Restaurateurs at the luxury end of the business have been complaining furiously during this recession that, while their tables are still full, the big spenders who make their businesses profitable by shelling out four- or five-figure sums for trophy wines, have disappeared. It turns out their absence may actually prove to be a boon. Investors in Asia have been piling into the fine wine market, causing prices at auction to shoot up above the historic highs reached in 2007. In short, those unsold restaurant wine cellars are fast becoming massively appreciating assets. Chalk it up in the column headed "Every cloud has… "
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit theguardian.com/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place
