Seafood Restaurant

What a difference a couple of years can make. The last time I looked at this restaurant there were perhaps more than a fair share of the attendant difficulties that go with preparing a new restaurant around, let alone one as daring and vertically challenging as this one.

But now all is well, the accolades are rolling in, there's hardly enough wall space to display the gongs, and the golfers and dons of St Andrews, never mind the rest, are flocking there in impressive numbers. Whichever way you turn the views are spectacular. Look out over the North Sea, the Old Course and West Sands, look in and enjoy seeing Craig Millar and his team working in their open kitchen. They claim to employ experience, professionalism and friendliness, and it's hard to fault them.

On a site such as this it would not be all that easy to think of any food except fish, which is just as well. The odd exception is made, but in the main it is fresh fish, not exactly caught from the restaurant, but not far off. For starters think of a salad of lobster and mango with chilli sauce and parsley pesto, or a terrine of foie gras and smoked ham shank for the dissenters. Follow with a timbale of kiln roasted and smoked salmon with Avruga and a shallot and chive crème fraiche. For golfers worrying about their handicap a half dozen Kilbrandon oysters might do the trick.

A grilled fillet of turbot with soft herb crust and sauternes sauce is well accompanied, and it did occur to me that baked fillet of halibut with a macadamia nut crust might be a play on words to keep the dons happy. The roast breast of Gressingham duck is there with the customary leg confit, red onion marmalade and a red wine and thyme jus.

Desserts offer a Drambuie and raspberry mousse, but the prune and Armagnac pudding with banana ice cream and butterscotch sauce is a consistently popular choice for many. Nor are the cheeses confined to Scotland, with a nifty Gogonzola providing significant competition to a well kept mature Cheddar from the Isle of Mull.

For service and the like let me refer you to the earlier claim made by the restaurant, which sums it up well. The wine list certainly repays close study, providing some very handsome options for the settlement of golfing wagers après la guerre.