Striped Bass

Occupying the top-floor unit of Glasgow's upmarket Prince's Square mall that previously housed doomed cocktail bar Hemingway's, Striped Bass is a seafood restaurant with its principles writ large. Simply, if it's endangered in the wild, it won't be going on your plate.

Showcasing sustainable, local catches is certainly an admirable ethos to hinge a restaurant on and it's always a delight to see the bold, underused flavours of mackerel, herring et al on a menu.

The cooking is largely confident, but suffers from some lapses in concentration. My generous pile of whitebait was crisp without being oil but was over-dusted with paprika and came without that essential wedge of lemon. My other half's pheasant breast salad was tender and proves Striped Bass caters for flesh fans too, but the leaves were drenched in an underwhelming, bland dressing.

My main was a tranche of turbot with a bold red wine reduction, the snowy white flakes of fish falling off the bone and proving someone in the kitchen is - terrible pun alert - a dab hand with flatfish. Over the table, a teetering pile of razor clams and mussels in a garlicky, briny broth were quickly polished off, along with a bowl of impeccable hand cut chips.

Dessert was a bit of a let-down, offering nothing more than slabs of generic cheesecake with a variety of toppings.

Management has the ambition of turning Striped Bass into a nationwide chain and, with this offering, there's no reason why that wouldn't be welcome. The service here is chatty and knowledgeable (I now know how to catch razor clams using salt and rubber gloves), and the low-lit, comfy clubroom design is an admirable attempt at negating the fact that you're looking down on Starbucks and FCUK rather than Nantucket Sound.