A restaurant like an ocean giant
Glasgow is beautiful. Filthy silver lies on the rain-soaked streets around Central Station, where groups of black-clad youth flutter in the morning rush hour as if celebrating an eternal Halloween here. A wind comes up from the banks of the Clyde, mingling with the flow of air from the subway shafts and the sweet waste heat of the small donuts bakeries.
On Argyle Boulevard, which passes through the city like a main artery, the first bars go up. And the neon signs of the major labels promise: Here and not in London, the top international designers, easy to reach, in Highheel near, so to speak, without the hassle of taxi rides: Frazers, Merchant City, Princess Square, Buchanan Galleries. In addition, the major brands in the Glasgow shopping arcades are a little less expensive than in the boutiques of the English metropolis. The customers who come here and soon become happy-tired, with stiff lacquered bags on colorful cords, will cross the street until they settle down in a white Mackintosh tearoom. Or you go straight to the "Rogano". For Glasgow is this "Rogano"? centrally located between the main shops, the theaters, next to the Royal Exchange and the Gallery of Modern Art? an everyday meeting place: for a sandwich at the bar, a glass of champagne, a coffee. The restaurant is the exquisite place to bring special business colleagues to lunch or celebrate a happy occasion with their family. For strangers, the "Rogano" is an imperative. "Glasgow made the Clyde, and the Clyde made Glasgow" was the Scottish insight of the industrial revolution.
Glasgow now has the image of the vibrant metropolis
James Watt not only invented the steam engine, he also deepened and channeled the river in Glasgow. And even today, long after the collapse of the big steel and shipbuilding industries, Glasgow is teeming with the legend of those future-filled days when its population grew six-fold and the new masses of workers in the docks built the big Cunard liners. Mid-19th century, the Clydeside was the largest shipyard in the world. The brightest steamships, ocean liners, the floating paradises of steel, came from here. So to put it briefly: If Glasgow is the Clyde, then the "Rogano" is the "Queen Mary".
On the upswing of the European Capital of Culture title, Glasgow has succeeded in transforming its image into a cheeky, vibrant metropolis, from which the pop group Franz Ferdinand causes international sensation and the young author A. L. Kennedy rises as a comet of a radical, reality-filled prose. In its new center, however, not far from the banks of the Clyde, the "Rogano" sticks to the course of a historic luxury liner.
The "Rogano" has the charm of an oceanic legend
When Don Grant, owner of several bars and restaurants in Glasgow, bought the "Rogano" in 1935? Back then a "Watering Place", a sherry bar especially for the men who worked on the Stock Exchange next door ?, he was still under the impression of the magnificent maiden voyage of the "Queen Mary". He was fascinated by the floating Art Deco and engaged as interior designer for the converted drinking-room Charles Cameron Baillie, who among other things had created the colorful lead-band glasswork in the "Queen Mary", that great predecessor of the "Queen Mary 2". (Today, by the way, the Queen Mary is retired in Long Beach, California, as a hotel, museum, convention center.) But those who enter the Rogano in Glasgow once again breathe the atmosphere of this oceanic legend here at their place of origin ,
In the "Rogano" style is a matter of attitude
Everywhere a touch of fan and shell. Only indirect light. Over the wall paneling, a mermaid rides on a floating steed and blows into a snail's horn, while another, naked in a shell, lolls towards a winged putto, who hastily holds out a golden mirror to her. The ride started in the noise of the air conditioning, under the slow wings of a fan. No one will encounter high seas, because the wooden doors of the furniture are rounded. And the floor is lined with that designed for the "Queen Mary" piece of the legendary Glasgower Temple clay carpet factory, a loose weave pattern of colorful tails, salmon, burgundy, green, black. On this wave bottom the travelers hardly feel the rocking of the ship. It is said that he also meets the wavering of the holy drinkers.
Two tall seahorses cut into the glass portholes of a swinging door welcome you. A waiter nods and points to the windowless room, which tilts into the depths of her mirrors.Everything is suddenly there: the cream-colored columns, the panels of peacock-sapphire, stucco walls with golden, relief-landscape impressions (the queen's look inspired by the mountain Lomond on Loch Lomond and the Scottish Highlands), the green padded secluded berths with the silver screen lamps, opposite the palm trees From the background comes the shimmering of the green and white tables with their echo of the glasses and the sparkling polished champagne bucket rising from the floor like candy on iron stalks.
Luxury is an always trouble-prone choreography.
Behind the bar, Jim Wilson wipes a strand from his face and shouts: Hi dear! What can I do for you? And when he asks that and smiles a little melancholy, every traveler has arrived as someone who may be at home on the way. Jim hands green tea in a heavy Alessi silver jug with a wooden handle, like jewels of brown and white sugar in the porcelain dish, he has placed three pieces of his own butter toffee slices on a plate. You are okay? A good bar manager is in a constant readiness to be sensitive. Luxury is attitude. Luxury is the attention of the black and white dressed waiter, the head waiter and the commis waiter with the golden or only black ties. Luxury is a harmonious, because always trouble-prone choreography.
Some of the guests have been coming for 40 years
Jim and his bar team dominate the looks, the handles, the etudes of the 30 cocktails (peach-colored Bellini in tall champagne glass, without garnish, Mellow Yellow in chilled juice glass with mint leaf, lemon and a cherry, silver frizz in ball glass with two black straws) and the big gesture of a fanned toast in a crackling bed of chips (smoked salmon, chicken and mango, prawn with ginger). They present the fresh crab cocktail like a bouquet and elegantly place the white plate, on it iced oysters in their opened bowls.
A very good barman like Jim is an inconspicuous therapist, he knows when to listen, when to comment, when to ask, and when to be quieter. You have decided to come here, he suggests to the guest. And we want you to be happy. Jim has been around a lot in Glasgow; He worked in the oldest bars in the city and in the best hotels. Twenty-five years ago he started working in the "Rogano". Some guests he knows from these days. And he knows that quite a few have been coming for 40 years.
If you have eaten lobster with your parents as a child to celebrate a successful exam, you will want to repeat this ritual with your children. And in the "Rogano", Jim knows, more important business is being done than in the Glasgow offices. There are attempts at solutions that are possible only in elevated relaxed.
The "Rogano" is open for around 14 hours. The first shift begins at ten in the morning and lasts until five in the afternoon, the second lasts until midnight. Jim knows the smell of the hours, and he modulates it with his music. He has put together a spectrum of tunes from the 30s to 50s. These were the great years of the "Queen Mary", and perhaps they were the most beautiful at sea and in music.
We want you to be happy.
On Saturday, when it is so crowded in the "Rogano" that very distinguished guests jostle for a very narrow standing room, the sound is a bit more "poppy", as Jim says, and on Sunday morning he puts on "cleaning music". The first cork pops. It is just after 11 o'clock. On the bar stools three businessmen are sitting in front of dark beer; two bunks are occupied by friends who drink espresso. In the third, an elderly lady with copper-red curls and a gray mohair collar checks e-mails on the PC. She ordered a glass of champagne.
The "Rogano" is specially supplied by the house Joseph Perrier near Epernay in the center of Champagne. 6000 bottles of champagne are given out each year. Jim grabs his thumb at the bottom of the champagne bottle and, with his thick, green glass body resting heavily on his palm, lets the amber liquid flow into a narrow cup. Nobody would grab a bouteille by the neck and serve it here.
The fish comes from the coast northwest of Glasgow
Meanwhile, one floor down, David Smith strokes his hand over the belly of a salmon off the Shetland Isles. It crunches as it cuts off its head, then halves the fish with flat cuts, removes fins and belly fat. Now the sole. He gently tugs her under the skin with his knife, as if he were cutting open the pages of a bibliophile treasure. With a thin linen he picks up the slightly loosened skin, pushes it with his thumb underneath, while he continues to peel off the skin fixed in the cloth. The fish came fresh; The couple Mc Callums from Troon, on the coast northwest of Glasgow, catch especially for the kitchen of the "Rogano". Here, fish is processed for the equivalent of 450 000 euros a year.On oysters alone (they come from the saltwater hole Etive) you need 1200 to 1500 pieces per week, and about 100 to 150 in lobsters (from the bay of Oban).
David strokes the seabream, halibut. His precise gestures remind of tenderness, even when he pricks the neck of the crawfish with the knife and continues through the pink quinine armor into the sweet meat. The animals must not be older than twelve hours in the "Rogano".
Here you need 1500 oysters per week.
In the blue squirrels the pot of fish soup is bubbling on a multi-flamed gas stove, quietly simmering behind it in various pots: game, poultry, wild fowl, beef. Finished sauces, covered with parchment paper, wait for Fergie, the chef who inspects them every morning. Fergie Richardson, 49, has just arrived here. The "Rogano" has changed hands for two million pounds; and the new owner, James Mortimer, by the way, an old regular in the "Rogano", knew Richardson from youth days and not only because he has published eight cookbooks.
Fergie Richardson completed his education in Geneva, he cooked in New York, in San Francisco, also in Singapore. The Asian cuisine interests him. He knows how popular the Scottish staple foods are in Asia and America: fish, pheasant, game. Now he's taking care of a Eurasian kitchen and experimenting with light sauces. A good fish should not be gelatinized.
The "Rogano" is under the highest possible monument protection
Here in the basement is also the bistro of the "Rogano", where now, before the guests come, chef Andy Cumming and his helpers and cooks sit around a round table with heated heads and long, blue and white diced aprons: black pudding , Beans, scrambled eggs, toast, bacon. Andy, who has been here for over 20 years, does not just see his job as a job. He also sees himself as the curator of a museum. The "Rogano" stands under Scotland's highest conservation monument. It is an institution. He points to the illuminated double glass windows with the creepers, anemones and squid, which give the impression of a deep dimension, just as if these windows led into a green underwater world. "Everything, Queen Mary," says Andy, sighing affectionately.
The team is a family.
The "Rogano" has a female boss: Ann Patterson, 38 years old, who appears and disappears like a shy mermaid. The slim person with the long blond hair is executive manager and decides about 80 employees. The "Rogano" does not advertise and hardly spells jobs. You know each other and hire someone who has a friend in the house. She herself was once hired by Jim, the bar manager, when she was 17, when she was a babysitter for Jim's little son Simon. And Jim had once been hired by her grandmother when she ran another Glasgow hotel. And four years ago, when Jim retired, she brought him back to the bar. His son Simon, whom she had guarded at the time, is meanwhile assistant manager in the "Rogano". She laughs. She also met her husband here, he studied politics in Glasgow and worked as a waiter by the way.
The "Rogano" team is a family. Here, personal commitment is required, but wages are above average. The waiter team is outstanding. For example, Gosiah, 27, from Gdansk: She studied politics in Stockholm, also in America, and repeatedly on cruise ships during the semester break. From there, she brought along the five-star service, which seamlessly fitted into the "Rogano". Or Michael, who graduated from St. Andrews, the best university in Scotland. He studies international relations with a focus on Asia and will (like the English princes) go to the military academy Sandhurst. He wants to become an officer, he says. This is the beginning of a career in the diplomatic service.
It can never hurt to have worked in the "Rogano"; It can never hurt to be seen in the "Rogano". Upstairs, the room has filled up. Jim has accelerated his moves while maintaining concentrated composure. Waiters balance the food as well as passing each other. At the bar men munch on sandwiches and read newspapers or spoon a fish soup. A couple has arranged to have a break with oysters with his beautiful daughter. Couples drink an aperitif and wait for one of the coveted bunks. Oh, you are on the list, a lady flutes as another advances to two vacant places.
All tables of the restaurant are occupied. Like almost every Saturday for 25 years, Paul and Isabell Gallagher sit at Table 11. For two people, they have decided Table 11 is the best. From here you have a view over the whole room. Paul and Isabell are a good old couple. She had sole today, he had a plate of grilled lobster. She is smiling with a narrow face. Her complexion is clear, her blond hair piled up like a fragile helmet. While she seems to be jumping alert, he seems comfortable.The breast pocket of his jacket shows the corner of a silver silk handkerchief. Paul and Isabell Gallagher enjoy going to the "Rogano" on Saturdays from their suburbs near Paisly for shopping in Glasgow. They appreciate the safe standard here.
A soup of the day costs as much as fish and chips in the "Rogano"
The two met when she was 15 and he was 19. They married five years later. I was a golfer, he says. I saw him drive by with his car, she says. I had a handicap of 2, he says. I thought, that's what I want, she says. I started earning money, building roads, which I found better than golf, he says. Golf, she says, was invented for men, so that the women have four hours rest. They laugh. It's a friendly place here, she says.
And sometimes real "Rogano" friendships developed. That was never arranged. Try eye contact, and often a nice conversation then comes about, which you can tie in, in the next week or in a year. Today, her three daughters have grown up, but they all celebrated their exams with menu cards with the notes on them. How do you estimate the price level in the "Rogano"? Paul does not understand the question. But Isabell explains. After all, there are three options: If you eat in the restaurant à la carte, that was very expensive. But the normal three-course lunch for 17 pounds? about 25 euros? is OK; in the bistro down the prices are again lower. Anyone can come to the bar, even if he does not have much money. A soup of the day costs as much as fish and chips on every street corner. Many women, she says, eat a snack at noon in the "Rogano". Here they are undisturbed like no other in Glasgow. The Callaghers do not go right away. They stay a while at the bar, where a friend has left their bags. A new evening dress wants to be discussed. Cheers, dears !, Jim smiles and pours Sauvignon.
Recipe - Grilled sole with lime and watercress
4 servings of 4 sole à 450 g (to be prepared by the fishmonger and peeled off the skin), 70 g flour, 1 tsp salt, freshly ground white pepper, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp butter, 1 bunch watercress, 2 limes; Fat for the baking tray? Preheat the oven grill to the highest level. ? Rinse sole fillets and pat dry. ? Mix flour, salt and pepper and place on a plate. Turn the sole fillets in it. Tap off the excess flour. ? Heat olive oil and butter in a large pan. Bake 2 salsa each side for about 2 minutes until golden brown. Place sole on a greased baking tray and grill for another 5 minutes under the grill. ? Clean the watercress, rinse off and spin dry. Rinse limes and cut into slices or slices. ? Place the grilled soles on preheated dishes. Arrange the watercress next to it and decorate everything with lime slices. Serve with boiled potatoes.
Recipe - beef fillet steaks with wild mushrooms
4 portions Sauce: 200 ml Madeira, 350 ml veal stock, 1 tbsp cold butter; shallots: 10 shallots, 1 teaspoon olive oil, salt, freshly ground pepper, 1 tbsp butter; Vegetables: 4 carrots, 2 zucchini, 4 mullets, 250 g green asparagus, 200 g mixed mushrooms, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp butter; Steaks: 4 tenderloin steaks à 150 g, 1 tsp olive oil, 1 tbsp butter
? For the sauce: reduce Madeira and veal stock to half. ? For the shallots: Preheat oven to 200 degrees, convection 180 degrees, gas stage 4. Remove shallots and cut in half. Brush a flat, ovenproof dish with olive oil. Add shallots and season with salt and pepper. Put butter in small flakes on top. Roast the shallots in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown. ? For the vegetables: Clean carrots, zucchini and turnips, rinse and dice. Rinse the asparagus, peel and cut into 2 cm long pieces. Clean mushrooms, wipe with a damp kitchen towel and slice. ? For the steaks: Dab the meat dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil and butter in a pan. Stir the steaks from each side for about 2 minutes. Add the meat to the shallots about 6 minutes before the end of the cooking time. ? Cook carrots, turnips, zucchini and asparagus in salted water for about 3 minutes. ? Heat the olive oil and butter in a pan and fry the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper. ? Bring the sauce to a boil and beat in the cold butter with a whisk. ? Arrange filet steaks, vegetables and mushrooms on preheated plates and drizzle with the sauce. Tip: How long the steaks in the oven must follow the shallots depends on the thickness of the fillets. If necessary, cover steaks with aluminum foil so that they do not get dry. With a slight pressure on the meat, test how "through" the steaks are. Give way, they are still pink inside.
Recipe - lime tart with sorbet
16 pieces Dough: 1 lime, 250 g flour, 80 g powdered sugar, 125 g cold butter, 1 egg; Flour for rolling out, dried legumes for pre-baking; Filling: 5 limes, 9 eggs, 400 g fine sugar, 250 g crème double; 50 g of powdered sugar for caramelization; 16 scoops of lemon or raspberry sorbet? For the dough: rinse lime hot, dab dry and finely chop the skin. Sift flour on the work surface. Add icing sugar and butter cubes. Put a flour in the flour and add the egg and 1 teaspoon lime peel. ? Quickly knead all ingredients into a smooth dough with the hands, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. ? Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, convection 160 degrees, gas stage 3. ? Roll out the dough on a small amount of flour (Ø approx. 36 cm). Lay out a springform (Ø 28 cm) with it and form a 4 cm high tigress. ? Pierce dough base several times with a fork, lay out with baking paper and fill to the brim with legumes. Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes. Remove the legumes and baking paper and bake the dough in the oven for another 8 minutes. ? For the filling: squeeze out the lime juice. Open one with the whisk of the hand mixer. Add lime juice, sugar and crème double and continue beating for approx. 2 minutes at the highest level. ? Leave the filling for about 10 minutes to allow the foam to dissolve. Pour the filling onto the pre-baked cake base and bake for another 40 minutes at the same temperature. Let the tart cool down. ? Dust shortly before serving with powdered sugar and caramelise with the Bunsen burner until the sugar has melted. Cut the lime tart into pieces and serve with a scoop of lime or raspberry sorbet. Tips: ? The tart is very rich, so serve only small pieces.? If you do not have a Bunsen burner, you can caramelize the icing sugar in a pan until golden brown and pour it over the tart in thin threads with a spoon. Or simply sprinkle the tart with powdered sugar.
