Restaurant review: Rocca Bar & Grill, Macdonald Rusacks Hotel, St Andrews

By RICHARD BATH
Published on Tuesday 21 February 2012 00:00

SOMEHOW our destination got lost in translation, and when I turned up at Jamie’s house, just outside St Andrews, he was dressed to impress. He took a look at my threadbare tailoring and I could see the cogs turning. After only a few seconds of talking at cross purposes, he twigged. “So we’re going to Rusacks,” he said, his bottom lip trembling slightly. “But I thought we were going to ...”

He soon pulled himself together, but I could see his point. Born and bred nearby, he knew Rusacks of old and his experiences there weren’t always the best. They could be entertaining but the grand old hotel by the 18th fairway and green at the home of golf wasn’t always so much chic as shabby.

On the way there, he remembered receiving a flier about the restaurant at Rusacks – he hadn’t understood it so had put it in the bin. A pity because it was designed to tell Jamie, a keen foodie, about the changes at Rusacks, where the restaurant is still within the hotel but has been hived off to a separate company and rebranded as Rocca. It’s part of a plan by Macdonald Hotels to take its restaurants upmarket, a strategy that has worked elsewhere – especially in North Berwick, where the fine-dining restaurant John Paul at the Marine is worth travelling for.

Many of us tend to get rather fixed views about nearby places so Jamie was staggered when we walked into Rocca and found a rather swish, modernistic restaurant that bore little resemblance to the place he inhabited in his teens and early 20s. What we found was a sumptuous, classy space that looked like a cross between Prestonfield and Blythswood Square, except for the fact that the 90-cover restaurant has remarkable views over the Old Course, with one window table looking straight on to the 18th green and R&A clubhouse. It’s a combination that ensures high numbers of golfers – the Europeans come in the spring, the Americans swamp the place in the summer – and ensures suitably high falutin’ prices.

Rocca is the lovechild of owners Adrian and Susan Pieraccini, whose CV includes Rocpool in Inverness. Behind the scenes is head chef Scott Davies, who arrived at Rocca from being sous chef at Glenapp Castle, but who has also worked at the Isle of Eriskay and the Point in Melbourne. Adrian does front of house and comes across as a knowledgeable, friendly soul, particularly when it comes to the restaurant’s eclectic and Italian-heavy wine list. But I would guess that it’s his chef who wears the hobnail boots in this relationship because, while Rocca advertises itself as an Italian restaurant, it’s nothing of the sort: if the view is 100 per cent Scottish, so – notwithstanding some conspicuous Italian flourishes – is the menu.

Jamie started with the roasted wood pigeon with porcini ravioli, chestnut purée and Umbrian lentil sauce, and was blown away. All of the fripperies were excellent, but it was the crimson chunk of heavenly pigeon, which had been cooked to perfection – so good, in fact, that it reminded me of Keith Braidwood’s signature dish – that really stole the show.

Against all expectations, my Armagnac-marinated foie gras and confit duck was every bit as good. Once again, the accompaniments – elderflower jelly, rhubarb and crispy sliced sourdough bread – added considerably to the overall effect. But it was the discs of velvety smooth foie gras and duck, all tinged with an unmistakable twang of brandy, that really made me sit up and take notice. This was top-quality food produced by a sure hand.

Both our main courses continued in the same vein, with superb dishes that sounded like culinary overkill on paper but in which the ingredients were allowed to hog centre-stage. My trio of loin, belly and shoulder of lamb was a case in point: this came with a cauliflower and cheddar purée and reform sauce but the meat was almost unadorned, and all the better for it. Succulent and tender, this was a dish to savour.

Jamie was similarly pleased with his beautifully poached and roasted corn-fed chicken, which came with stuffed wings (that at first sight resembled ancient chipolatas), surprisingly good stuffed pumpkin gnocchi and white beans and chorizo, pulling together a classy combination of ingredients. As an amateur jockey who watches his weight, he eats chicken as penance for half the year: this, he said, was as good as any chicken dish in recent memory.

As the non-weightwatcher of the duo, I was a lone grazer when it came to pudding, so I chose assistant manager Mark Roger’s favourite dish. A local boy from Cupar, Roger had recognised me, partly because I was none too complimentary about the pudding he produced in a former life, as sous chef to Geoff Smeddle at the nearby Michelin-starred Peat Inn. This time the crunchy lemon cream with salted crumble and iced almond yoghurt he recommended was technically brilliant and looked like a gastronomic work of art – it was a sort of lemon crème brûlée without the sugary crust – but it was too subtle by far, with the cream needing more lemon and the yoghurt needing more almonds. It was a near miss, though, and the fact that we were judging the food by such high standards says a lot about the way our expectations had changed through the meal.

If I had to come up with any other shortcomings, I’d mention that there appears to have been no consideration to vegetarians, let alone vegans. Nor, unless you choose the set menu, is Rocca cheap, although that’s a fair reflection of St Andrews these days. Yet to look for downsides does the place a disservice because for every gripe there are two or three reasons to be grateful – not least the excellent wine list, swanky surroundings, impeccable service and, most importantly, a cliché-free menu that mixes innovation and excellence in equal measure. As a puzzled Jamie said, “It’s bloody good here, I wonder why I didn’t come sooner.”

• Rocca Bar & Grill

Macdonald Rusacks Hotel, Pilmour Links, St Andrews, Fife (0844 879 9136, www.roccagrill.com)

• Bill please

Starters £7.95-£12.95 Main courses £12.50-£25.60 Steaks £23.90-£29.95)

Puddings £7.95-£8.75 Cheese £7-£9.50 Winter set menu £20.50 (two courses), £25.50 (three courses)

Rating: 8/10

Logged in as:

Comment here. Start typing your comment here:

Post comment

Please adhere to our Community guidelines

Your view

Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.