Ian Brown

To get three courses for £16 of this quality, an amuse bouche and packed into a local neighborhood bistro is practically unheard of.
Ian, the former head chef of the Ubiquitous Chip (in its hey day), and his wife provide a homely feel and make you feel like guests in their home as opposed to a faceless diners in a restaurant.
If you’re in the area and looking for dinner, it’s definitely the place to eat in Greater Clarkston.

We’d dined at Ian Brown when it first opened on the South Side, and I left feeling a little underwhelmed. But I always like to give somewhere a second chance, so we paid it another visit recently.
Bookings are pretty much essential for this restaurant, and when you arrived you’ll see why. The seating area is tiny and they do their best to cram as many tables in as possible — which is a big part of why this was such an «ok» experience for me. It is just way too crowded, it’s really hard to navigate between the tables and you could easily hear most conversations on the surrounding table. I found myself scanning the restaurant and picking two or three tables that they could take out to make the place a lot more spacious — but seeing as it’s been like this since it opened I guess they have no plans to change it.
If the food was exceptional, I’d probably worry less about the fact it’s so crowded. I had the seared West Coast scallops on potato rosti (£8.50) as a starter and baked sea bass fillet with prawn risotto and pak choi (£16.50).
The scallops were nice — plump and well cooked but generally I found the dish a little bland and thought they didn’t really reach the «seared» description on the menu. I love a potato rosti and this was nice and crisp, possibly needed a bit more seasoning.
I didn’t enjoy my main, I’ll be honest. The fish was fine and had a lovely skin on it but the risotto was gluggy and thick, not smooth and creamy like a risotto should be. The dish also seemed like it needed a proper sauce — as you can see from the photos, there was a little bit of sauce around the edges of the plate but nowhere near enough for the size of the fish.
I decided not to have dessert (but Graeme and our friends did). Later on in the night, my friends wanted coffee but we were well and truly ignored as staff were doing their prep for the next day. There was still quite a few tables in the restaurant by this point so it wasn’t as though it was right on closing. That being said, I thought the staff were really great the rest of the night so it was just a shame that when we wanted to order more drinks it was a challenge.
The bill came to around £45 per head, with a tip including drinks. Safe to say I won’t be in a huge hurry to return here again, after another underwhelming visit.

Unfortunately I’m not able to eat in this restaurant more often as I do not live in Scotland anymore. Nevertheless, it was my second time at Ian Brown because I liked it so much the first time.
It’s a cute little restaurant with a nice interior and everyone who works there is really friendly.
I had Haggis as a starter followed by cod fish as a main dish. The quality of the food is very good and it tastes amazing. The restaurant is not in the city centre but it’s worth visiting.

…why am I the first person reviewing this amazing place? There’s a whole world out there besides the West End, Unilocalers! Or maybe you just couldn’t get a reservation – it’s always, always busy, every night of the week that it’s open.
Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t review it then, and lead people to this perfect little local eatery with its reclaimed wood interior and exciting menu that makes the most of local ingredients in ways you never could have imagined. I won’t mention that it is helmed by the former head chef of Ubiquitous Chip, who has taken his creative and intelligent palate to a small special space where he can really make the most of it.
So just ignore this. Don’t make a special trip to Giffnock. Stay in the West End. More for me.