Food review: The Baby Grand Restaurant, Glasgow

Baby Grand restaurant bar deli elmbank gardens Charing Cross Glasgow

The Baby Grand, 30+ years old and grander!

Long-time family favourite The Baby Grand has expanded, refurbished and given itself a brush-up.  We popped along to see how much it’s changed and sample some of the new food on offer.

Inside it’s brighter and flows a lot better.  I liked the quirkiness of The Baby Grand of old, but it was always so narrow.

Baby Grand restaurant bar deli elmbank gardens Charing Cross Glasgow

Now there’s a lot more room for moving about, the newly acquired left-hand side, which replaced the sandwich shop that was there before is now a deli, while the restaurant & bar hasn’t moved, it’s just bigger and now includes a window with view towards The Mitchell Library on the back wall. The toilets have also been moved and upgraded, as has the Kitchen.

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Menu

Here’s the hostess with the mostess showing off the menu. Yes, that’s Mr Foodie’s delicate fingers holding up the menu…

Baby Grand restaurant bar deli elmbank gardens Charing Cross Glasgow Baby Grand restaurant bar deli elmbank gardens Charing Cross Glasgow Baby Grand restaurant bar deli elmbank gardens Charing Cross Glasgow

Baby Grand restaurant bar deli elmbank gardens Charing Cross Glasgow

 

Food

Chef rustled up a platter of salad bits for a starter. Roast courgette, carrot hummus, roast beetroot with braised leeks, walnuts and cider dressing plus gluten-free pasta made with red lentils, oh, and roast fennel and aubergine and more! It was all rather healthy and a good mix of food from the Med and Middle-East.

Baby Grand restaurant bar deli elmbank gardens Charing Cross GlasgowThe carrot hummus was 👌 and went really well with the courgette.  Think I’ll be back for a lunchtime salad.

Baby Grand restaurant bar deli elmbank gardens Charing Cross Glasgow

Rotisserie chicken is the main draw now so we split a half chicken served with chicken gravy, fries and dripping fat veggies (turnip, carrot and onion on our visit but may change?).  Addictive moist chicken, crisp fries, and a tasty gravy.  👍 from us both.

Baby Grand restaurant bar deli elmbank gardens Charing Cross Glasgow

There’s lots of home baking on show with flour-less cakes no less! The orange and almond cake was my fave.  Ground almonds, oranges, eggs and sugar makes a moist and citrussy cake.  The Chocolate fudge cake, like a rich gooey brownie was a fave of Mr Foodie, gloopy, chocolatey and well, it disappeared extremely quickly!  Shout out as well to the Persian cake with pistachio and rose, nuts, carrots and rose water. All three cakes were excellent in fact and unlikely to deter anyone who would normally only eat ‘gluten’ cakes. Oh, and they also have marmalade ice-cream which is also delicious! 😍

 

Drinks

The Baby Grand is of course still a piano bar so we couldn’t leave without trying some ‘piano bar’ drinks. For wine, they have 4 reds by the glass (and three different sizes) including an Argentinian Malbec, with a couple of whites and roses by the glass too.

There’s an emphasis on gin with a few unusual options from across the globe. We had the Boutique-y rhubarb gin but not with tonic, oh no, apple juice was recommended and this was spot on!

Baby Grand restaurant bar deli elmbank gardens Charing Cross Glasgow

We then ended the evening with a couple of ‘secret’ cocktails without a name…one with Whisky, milk, cinnamon and the other coffee, Frangelico and Tia Maria. Both boozy, hic! 🍸

 

Verdict

👍

I’m glad to report that the heart of The Baby Grand is still there.  The new look is brighter with more of an emphasis on salads and lunchtime dining but there’s still the feel of a place where you can sneak in for an indulgent coffee or cocktail – at any time of the day!  All the food on the evening we visited was great and rotisserie chicken is always a winner with us. The gluten-free cakes were all brilliant. If we were to make one criticism it would be that the fries could’ve been a bit more special but we will definitely be nipping in at lunchtime soon to see the deli in full flow.

TL;DR
+ The Baby Grand is now a deli, bar and restaurant
+ Great chicken and salads
+ Amazing cakes
+ Improved toilets!
+ View of the Mitchell library

– Crisp but fairly standard fries

Where

Baby Grand Bar & Grill, 3 Elmbank Gardens, Glasgow. Right next to Charing Cross train station so easy to get to for anyone on the Queen St low-level line.

 

Disclaimer: The Baby Grand kindly invited us in to try the new food and a few drinks at no cost to ourselves. Fred has seen the chicken and wishes to join us when we return for lunch!

fred purr of honour

Emma

Emma

Hello!

I am Emma and with my husband Mark write Foodie Explorers, which is a food and travel website.

I am a member of the Guild of Food Writers and British Guild of Travel Writers.

We have a wide range of judging experience covering products, hotels and have judged, for example, for Great Taste Awards and Scottish Baker of the Year.

Along the way Mark gained WSET Level 2 in Wine and I have WSET Level 2 in Spirits as well as picking up an award with The Scotsman Food and Drink Awards.    

Usually I can be found sleeping beside a cat.

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