Bastion

Paul McDonald started working in kitchens in his native Glasgow when he was just 14 years of age, and this quiet Scotsman has simply been getting better and better at his job in all the years since. Today, in the pretty Bastion, where his partner Helen steers front of house, his cooking has a starry sheen. Mr McDonald loves to max the flavours of his ingredients, cooking carrots in carrot juice, poaching trout in olive oil and serving it in tomato water, compressing shoulder of suckling pig into a tidy terrine, and those golden raisins on top of your roulade of rabbit and foie gras have had a close encounter with some Sauternes before finishing the dish. It’s painstaking cooking, detailed and intense, yet married to pure, svelte flavours. The room is charmingly unpretentious, and lovely wines match the inspirational cooking.