Exel Dining

The fair city of Perth is not overburdened with restaurants of above average credentials, as I discovered on a recent visit, but Exel Dining is certainly one of them. Run by the same team that made their mark with South Bistro, these guys know what they are about, a sentiment that reveals itself in all their various approaches to life's little problems. This is nowhere better demonstrated than in their list of local produce in season, a bold response to an implicit challenge for anybody who makes these sort of blanket claims.

A typical menu might work its way through yesterday's soup (always tastes better, just like curry) with today's fresh bread. The fish, breathtaking in its simplicity but ravishing in its effect on the palate could be wild halibut, smoked mackerel, grapes and baby gherkins wrapped in finest Scottish smoked salmon, fennel and grape fruit chutney and fresh leaves.

A traditional Toulouse cassoulet with its original bread crumb crust might just about compete, but then of course there's the chèvre chaud, roasted tomato, confit peppers and goat cheese tartlet, olive tapenade and herb salad.

Thus both reinforced and titillated it's time to move on to the greater plates around, starting with extra mature Aberdeen Angus fillet, root vegetable rosti, pea puree and horse radish cream. The lamb, well, what else but a tagine of slow braised neck of lamb, sultana couscous and sautéed baby courgettes? The vegetarians, bless 'em are on notice for a vegetable moussaka, Greek style lima beans with dill and lemon.

Pan fried corn fed chicken breast, whose pedigree is not quoted though I can't imagine anything the remotest bit iffy making it into Exel's kitchens, is linked with roasted baby vine tomatoes, spinach, garlic, walnut and Stilton risotto, which leaves us with only a fish dish to explore, and here comes the crispy pan fried filleted sea bass with a tomato and pancetta salad, baby potatoes, Exel fennel and herb pesto.

The trouble with a menu such as this is that it leads to a process of unwelcome elimination more than most but hey! just be pleased for your appetite and those who struggle to satisfy it.

It would be too much to expect that a restaurant of this quality and imagination would miss any opportunities, particularly those provided by what true Cumbrians refer to as 't'arfters'. Four in number they are all compelling, in their own ways, but I suspect many of you will just have to head for the Exel sticky ginger pudding chocolate and crystallised Cognac ice cream, which sounds like a list of all the things they forgot to put into icky-sticky-toffy pudding before it escaped from Cartmel.

The wine list is not for the faint hearted, and the house wines ands wines by the glass would be seen as highly satisfactory by someone who had just completed a tour of duty in one of the grottier, hotter parts of the globe. So Exel thoughtfully provided a much wider list which has some real gems amongst it and marches firmly in step with the kitchen Brigade.

I hope the inhabitants of Perth and district are aware of how fortunate they are in having this pearl in their midst. If not a quick click on their Website will reveal much more and go some way to prepare you for a visit you simply must not miss.