Travel: We hae meat and we can eat – let The Globe be thankit

“This is version 9.5,” says head chef Fraser Cameron as our sea bass arrives.

We are at the Globe Inn in Dumfries, one-time haunt of Robert Burns and now a whisky bar, acclaimed restaurant and museum, and we have just been served the third course of a stunning five-course tasting menu. The delicate sea bass fillet is served with Oscietra caviar, chopped beetroot and hollandaise sauce.

Fraser, 27, a former Young Scottish Chef of the Year, is sitting among his guests at a single long table, eating with us, and explains each course as it arrives, while also talking about his career and cooking.

© Supplied

“The sea bass was my first ever signature dish. It’s something I started to develop when I was at Andrew Fairlie’s, and the first time it made it on to an actual menu was when I got to 21212 in Edinburgh, so it took a long time to develop and get it to a stage that was good enough to serve to the public.” It has clearly been a painstaking process.

“For 9.5 we changed some of the garnish, some of the beetroot. One of the versions we cut the beetroot too small, they were there but not actually bringing anything to the dish. It’s almost like a mirror to my career – as I have developed, this dish has developed with me.”

Fraser’s love of cooking began at 13 when he got an after-school job washing dishes at a hotel in his home town of Dalry in Ayrshire. Work placements at a butchery and a conference centre followed, and he found his life’s passion.

“I was in fifth year at the time at school and when I decided this is what I wanted to do, I had kind of fallen in love with the industry, the camaraderie, the passion,” he says. “You can imagine the look on my mum’s face when I told her I was dropping five Highers to go and be a chef.”

© Supplied

After studying cookery at college, Fraser won a scholarship to work with Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles. Positions at other top restaurants followed – notably working at Martin Wishart’s The Honours and as a sous chef at 21212 before he was approached by The Globe’s then head chef, now head of cuisine, Jonathan Brett, to join the team there.

The Globe, which dates back to 1610, was Robert Burns’ favourite bar. Burns began frequenting the inn after he was appointed an excise officer in Dumfries in 1789. His association with it is recorded in letters he wrote – describing it as his “howff” or haunt – and also in a grace which he composed in honour of its landlord and landlady, William and Janet Hyslop.

Burns had a love affair with Anna Park, Janet’s niece and a barmaid at the Inn, and she bore him a daughter, Elizabeth, later adopted by his wife, Jean Armour, following Anna’s death.

His presence is everywhere in The Globe, including a verse he etched on a window and the table and chair at which he would write and dine. Three of Burns’ room have been preserved, including the bed chamber in which he slept – and romanced Anna.

In 2018 the inn was bought by husband and wife David Thomson and Teresa Church, primarily to preserve those Burns rooms.

They undertook a restoration of the entire property – opening up the room we dined in as a function room – and in 2019 the venue reopened, now with a fine dining restaurant.

David was born and raised in Dumfries and has enjoyed a successful career in science and business, most notably as the founding chairman of the MMR Group, an international market research company.

An avid fan of Burns and a malt whisky enthusiast, David, along with Teresa, acquired the derelict Annandale Distillery in 2007, successfully returning it to full production in 2014.

Following the restoration, The Globe reopened with the restaurant pitched as a high-end destination venue. The tasting menu we tried is one of a series of events run there, in addition to the regular restaurant.

We had started with canapés, one a warm sour cream choux pastry, the other a taramasalata-flavoured creamed potato on the theme of fish and chips. Then there was an amuse bouche (smoked lobster and tomato gazpacho with a horseradish foam), each course paired with a different wine.

After the sea bass came duck liver paté, paired with a Hungarian Royal Tokaji wine. This was a revelation – a savoury course perfectly complemented by a sweet wine. Preparing this paté began a week before it was served – as Fraser notes, if you don’t get it exactly right, you won’t know until you eat it.

Then came salmon en-croute, the fish surrounded by a scallop and mussel mousse and wrapped in a spinach pancake, followed by a Globe signature dish – Galloway beef.

“The beef comes from a farm 3.1 miles from our front door. When you have a product as good as that you don’t need to do anything to it, it absolutely sings on the plate,” says Fraser. “The decision was we could either do what everybody else does and be exactly the same as the next 10 restaurants down the street, or we could be bold, be different, do what we really want to do but it is going to be at the very top end, where there is a lot of hard work, a lot of sacrifice, but what we will have is something special in a building which is really special.”

© Supplied

The result has helped win The Globe a Michelin listing and VisitScotland’s Best Eating Experience at the Thistle Awards.

Our meal was £95 a head, with the wine flight a further £80. But the amount of work that goes into the evening justifies the price.

“We were working on the menu for a whole week – a team of seven working 40 hours a week – on top of doing our normal restaurant service as well,” says Fraser. “But you have to think about the dishes beforehand, and plan.

“It really is about our love of the job and our passion for food.”

P.S.

Annandale Distillery: This once derelict distillery has been restored and reopened by the owners of The Globe and offers tasting tours and The Maltings, a truly superb coffee shop worth a visit in its own right.

Henry Duncan Savings Bank Museum: A small but fascinating museum in the village of Ruthwell, just outside Dumfries, which was home to the world’s first savings bank for ordinary people.

Caerlaverock Castle: A moated, triangular-shaped ruined castle just seven miles from Dumfries, with a fascinating history. One of Scotland’s best castles.