Scamp, Glasgow

Scamp is the new place from the team behind a pair of well-known and exciting Glasgow venues – the small plates restaurant Eighty Eight and wine bar Hooligan. It’s right in the city centre, and when we pop in on a Sunday lunchtime a few weeks after their opening, it is completely empty. Maybe it’s the on-off rain outside, or it could be the fact that everyone in town seems to be gearing up for the Liam Gallagher gig at Hampden later, but it’s an inauspicious start.

Once we’re inside, things pick up. The decor is all muted greys, lovely plates and nice wooden touches. The staff are great, and the food – from a fish-focused menu of small plates – kicks off with a banger. Sourdough from the excellent Freedom Bakery is paired with zingy pickled mussels and a brilliant mussel broth butter (£5). The butter manages to be extremely nautical yet actually quite subtle, all salty hints rather than loud shouts about Fish In The Butter.

Next up are a pair of barbecued scallops (£13), topped with charred leeks that look a little bit like hay if you were to squint enough or really want to make the comparison. The scallops are perfectly cooked; juicy, tender, with a hint of char from the grill. Pickled leeks keep your taste buds on their toes, and a bright green purée underneath ties everything together. At the same time, it’s £13 for two scallops, which is a lot no matter how many leeks you throw in.

A better deal comes courtesy of the panko-coated fried mushrooms (£8). Juicy mushrooms in a crunchy coating, layered with more delicious pickles, and dotted with another impressive sauce. The words ‘black garlic aioli’ might summon memories of over-enthusiastic burger chefs from the early-2010s, but this stuff is creamy, subtle, yet very definitely packed with garlic.

The monkfish scampi (£9) is also fantastic. Once again, the fish is brilliantly juicy, and the fried chicken-style coating is a bit like a herby, spicy exoskeleton. It comes paired with a chicken and tarragon gravy, which turns away from the ‘all pickles, all the time’ vibe of the earlier dishes in favour of being extremely unctuous and savoury. Eat it quickly, as our coating tended to fall off the fish towards the end, but it’s delicious so of course you’ll eat it quickly. The asparagus (£6), with kalamata olives and some crackly, diamond-sharp croutons, is nice, but it’s no monkfish scampi.

Then there’s the prawn hotdog (£9). A prawn sausage, laden with pickled fennel, dressed with strings of sauce and topped with dollops of smoked caviar, all served in a brioche bun. It looks… impressive. It feels like nothing else we’ve tried all afternoon. It’s not particularly nice. The sausage itself is tasty – good bite, nice texture, very shrimpy – but there’s just too much going on. Our bun is a bit stale, the sheer volume of stuff packed into one space is overwhelming, and in the context of a small plates sharing menu, what are you actually supposed to do with this? Cut it into little bits? Take a bite and pass it on?

The prawn hotdog feels like it was designed for Instagram, as a dish that people can share and point to saying ‘that’s a bit different’, but it also obscures what Scamp does well. The chill-industrial aesthetic, the subtle flavours and precise plating, the fact that these guys can really cook a fish – that’s what will bring people through the doors and keep them coming back. Well, that and a quick change in the weather.

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26A Renfield St, Glasgow, G2 1LU
Wed-Sun, midday-late