For a good few months, fans of Glasgow’s Ox and Finch and Ka Pao have been impatiently waiting for the team’s latest restaurant, Margo. By far the biggest restaurant for Scoop, the restaurant group behind the two award-winning and Michelin recommended sister sites, Margo’s kitchen is headed up by Glasgow native Robin Aitken, who first joined Scoop as a chef at Ox and Finch back in 2014.
After a period of travelling and working abroad, Aitken returned to Scoop as part of the senior team leading Ka Pao Glasgow to its first Michelin Bib Gourmand, and Ox and Finch retaining its Bib Gourmand for the 10th year.
Of the launch, Jonathan MacDonald (Managing Director of Scoop Restaurants Group) said: Margo will be an evolution of our first restaurant, Ox and Finch, which has just celebrated its 10th birthday.
"Both restaurants share the same ethos of being relaxed, accessible and fun, alongside a focus on quality. Whilst retaining lots of the features that have made Ox and Finch so popular for the last decade, Margo will be bigger and bolder.
"We’ll be pushing things further in the kitchen, baking our own breads, making fresh pastas and also doing some in-house butchery. There’ll also be a larger, more adventurous wine list, which the team have been sourcing from a range of great suppliers.”
We visit in the week of opening, and settle into our downstairs booth ready to see if the team can create the same magic of great service, good food and excellent drinks you’ll find in the other two restaurants.
Firstly, Margo is a bright, airy space with huge ceilings, exposed bricks and pillars and vinyl-looking wood elements that give it the look and feels of a 70’s style loft. It’s laid-back but cool, and, with a mezzanine level upstairs and an open kitchen and huge bar, it’s a great use of this space.
The team worked with Stuart Black of Mosaic Architecture and Design to pull off this effortless, welcoming but industrial look that includes architectural metalwork and traditional clay render, ceramic and terracotta tiles and salvaged light fittings.
Our night started with a bang, when a rogue cork from a bottle of fizz ricocheted off the wall and almost took my eye out. Talk about a memorable welcome. After trying to work out how that was possible, we browsed the menu.
On the menu there’s snacks, small plates and sharing dishes that highlight seasonal produce, sourced from local and national growers and makers. The menu will evolve regularly, but will retain its focus on Scottish seafood, meat butchered in-house, and bread and pasta made from scratch.
I’ve been told by a friend and colleague to definitely try the celeriac, smoked haddock churros and bavette steak.
Sadly the churros - as weird as they sound - are sold out so we choose the intriguing sounding chipsticks with taramasalata (£6), followed by hand-dived Uist scallops, sobrasada and haricot beans (£19.50); charred pumpkin, lemon, pumpkin seed butter (£9); and the recommended grilled celeriac, remoulade and hazelnuts (£8.50).
For the larger dish we went for the bavette steak with chimichurri (£14) and sides of crispy ratte potatoes, garlic butter (£6) and spinach with margo ‘boursin’ (£4.50).
The chipsticks were like two long, thin hash browns served with a tart yet creamy light pink taramasalata. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this dish and thoroughly enjoyed it, my only criticism being that the ‘chipsticks’ could have been crispier.
The scallops, plump, juicy and not overcooked, sat in a sea of what looked like baked beans which gave bite and texture. The pumpkin was a star choice, with the fudgey vegetable cut into a half moon and thinner stripped, charred to give it a wonderful texture.
This was lifted by the pumpkin seed butter and a wedge of lemon. The celeriac cut into strips like halloumi, was also served grated like coleslaw and as a remoulade. This dish was nice, but didn’t blow us away.
The bavette steak, cooked pink and sliced, was doused with dark green, fragrant chimichurri but it was the potatoes, served whole, crisp and with a good dollop of garlic butter are surely set to be Margo’s version of Ka Pao’s fried chicken, which can never leave the menu given how popular it is.
For dessert we shared a special of grilled figs, almond cream and fig leaf granita and brown butter almond tart, poached quince and crème fraîche (£6) though the bare bones chocolate nemesis, vanilla ice cream caught my eye.
The figs were almost savoury and light, welcome given how full I was, while the wonderfully crisp pastry in the tart held up to the filling though the brown butter and quiche flavour was quite subtle.
Despite starting the night with that eye-watering slight mishap, Margo was memorable not just for that.
While some dishes were just fine, others really stood out and showcased the kitchen’s ability to experiment and do something new with dishes and produce that we recognise.
I will definitely be back, to try some of the bigger dishes, the cocktails and extensive wine list and nemesis chocolate pudding. Plus Sebb’s, the downstairs cocktail bar, will open this month. Ox and Finch and Ka Pao are restaurants I always recommend to friends and family visiting Glasgow, and I can see Margo making that list too.
