OVER the past ten years the quality of food in Scotland has gone up immeasurably, and nowhere is this more true than in the Borders. In the west, the Peebles area boasts Osso, Cringletie House and the Horseshoe at Eddlestone. Towards the North Sea in the east there's the Roxburghe Hotel and the Eden Water House in Kelso.
There are any number of places in between those two points, many of them around the douce wee town of Melrose. That number includes a local favourite, the Hoebridge Inn in Gattonside, just across the Tweed from Melrose, a pretty, family-run pub that
has built up a formidable reputation since Elaine and Kerr Marrian bought it in 2005. In beautiful countryside, it also attracts more than its fair share of walkers (including our very own Nick Drainey, a firm fan).
Gattonside used to be the site of the orchards for the monks at Melrose Abbey and nowadays it is reached by the small winding road that snakes along the north side of the Tweed, meandering along until it comes to the small collection of houses known primarily for being the birthplace and home of the Melrose rugby coach and former British Lion, Craig Chalmers, but which also contains the ever-popular Chapters Bistro.
The Hoebridge Inn was originally built as a bobbin mill in the mid 18th century and after a brief stint as a byre was converted into a restaurant in the early 1980s. It's a building that was well-made for this part of the world, with its huge stone whitewashed walls ensuring the place is cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The low, beamed ceilings and red carpets create a homely feel.
Kerr was for many years at Skippers in Edinburgh and also had stints at Fishers on The Shore and Stac Polly, both also in the capital, as well as Stobo Castle. He is the chef of the pair while Elaine runs the front of house. Since his arrival almost exactly four years ago he has built up a loyal clientele thanks largely to his determination to use local ingredients wherever possible, a principle that extends to the garden, which supplies a good deal of the herbs used in the kitchen.
Alasdair and Anne are regulars and tell me the place is invariably full, but on the Saturday night we visited there were just three of the ten or so tables taken and the place had a slightly eerie quality. We moved quickly to the menu which, with a couple of notable exceptions, was fairly bog-standard stuff; in the absence of many particularly interesting raw ingredients or any cunning culinary twists, this was going to be all about the quality of the ingredients and the expertise of the chef.
I started off with the homemade Shetland salmon, smoked haddock and spring onion fishcakes while Alasdair opted for the grilled queen scallops and Anne chose the salad of toasted French goats cheese, sun blushed tomato, pine nuts and wild rocket. Although nothing particularly disappointed, nothing overwhelmed either. The big round of goats cheese was just nicely molten, but not pungent enough to really exercise Anne's taste buds; Alasdair's queen scallops were fine, but my fish cakes elevated blandness to a new high while the accompanying lemon mayonnaise tasted neither home-made nor remotely lemony.
Our main courses were equally mixed. Alasdair's pan-fried breast of guinea fowl served with a red wine and redcurrant gravy and dauphinoise potatoes and crispy bacon was, without a doubt, the pick of the bunch. The dark meat was gloriously tender; the rich gravy provided a welcome hint of sourness which proved to be the perfect complement.
Anne's hefty grilled sea bream fillets were served on sun blushed tomatoes, mascarpone and vegetable risotto and weren't bad either, although the fish had spent a little too long under the grill for her liking. Being overcooked was the least of the problems with my "roasted pork loin", which turned out to be a pork chop in all but name. The addition of some very good black pudding, sauteed potatoes and a nice apple and mustard creme fraiche went some way to redeeming the situation, but being a natural tightwad meant that being charged £14 for a small, overcooked pork chop, no matter what accompanied it, produced a spasm of righteous indignation on my part.
Pudding went some way to rescuing our meal, but even that wasn't universally impressive. With one dish hitting the target – Alasdair's vanilla creme brulee was apparently as good as he'd ever had – the other wasn't on nodding terms with the bullseye, namely my pretty ordinary sticky toffee pudding. To make matters worse, I asked for a scoop of ice cream to accompany my pudding and promptly found that a hefty extra charge had been added to the bill. Small things, but important.
The Hoebridge Inn is a beautiful little place, and with a few more folk in attendance the atmosphere could be far livelier. Yet as it stands the equation doesn't stack up for me: these are city centre prices and the food was just too unremarkable to justify the cost. Alasdair and Anne may swear by their local, and Nick may choose to ramble past, but I'll be moving on to pastures new.
Vital statisticsHoebridge Inn Gattonside
Melrose, Roxburghshire (01896 823082, www.thehoebridgeinn.com)
Out of pocket Starters £3.50-£6 Main courses £14-£22 Puddings £5.50 Cheese £6.95
Rating 6/10
The full article contains 924 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
