Chef Director Colin Anderson championed a new dining experience on Glasgow’s Great Western Road

What was originally intended to be a casual wine bar on Great Western Road has become one of Glasgow’s most highly rated fine dining spots.

Transcript

00:00Brett's a sort of modern European restaurant where the food is high level, high end,

00:06but we're not like making that obvious. So we're like trying to make people feel comfortable and

00:10make sure they don't feel like we've put too much effort in, but the effort is still there.

00:14I guess real sort of focus on seasonality, good producers, suppliers, and with the dishes,

00:23sort of real focus on texture and acid and balance, to be honest, and just kind of keeping

00:28everybody's palates wanting more and excited. I worked in Glasgow for a while, I worked for

00:33the ubiquitous chip, and then I was actually at Kalebrook, the original Kalebrook, out at Bridgew

00:36Weir, working for Paul and Chris, who are business partners here, and left Kalebrook, moved to London,

00:44worked at restaurant Gordon Ramsay, and then opened City Social for Jason Atherton,

00:49and then decided to go to Australia and worked in Australia for four years at

00:54Quay by Peter Gilmore, and then Cullen Wines in Margaret River, and then came back to Glasgow,

01:00kind of not really knowing what to do, to be honest, and what I wanted to do,

01:04and did a little bit of consultancy work, helped my friend Tom open, or helped him sort of

01:09establish Sprigg, and then Paul got in touch and said, would I like to do something, and then

01:15kind of that's where Brett took off. So I grew up in Finiston, and before Finiston was

01:21Finiston, of what we all know as now, there was literally nothing there when I

01:26was growing up, apart from a few sort of curry houses, Mother India, for instance,

01:31there was a place called Taste of Punjab, we used to always go to as kids, but there was nothing

01:35really there, and then the Ben Nevis came, 54 below, which is now, which became Distil, and is now

01:41the Crescent, and then the Crab Shack, and if I'm honest, it was the Crab Shack that really turned

01:46the tide in Finiston, and really kind of made that a sort of foodie's destination, and an area

01:51for people to go for drinks and for food, and then after the Crab Shack came out, that's when I moved

01:56away, and then in coming back after my sort of 10 years out of the city, I was kind of blown away by

02:03the Gannet had opened up, the Ox and Finch had opened up, and all these sort of places that

02:07with talented, talented people behind them, that are really kind of focusing on actually good

02:11quality, good quality food, and then in the last three or four years since COVID, I think people

02:17have really recognized what hospitality means to them in this city, and yeah, it's just continued

02:22to improve, people are now willing to stand outside a coffee shop, or a bakery, and queue for good

02:28croissants, because they want the quality over going to Sainsbury's, or wherever, and just picking

02:33up whatever's cheapest, and actually they want quality, and that's kind of supply and demand,

02:37if the demand's there for quality, then the supply obviously gets better, and we kind of,

02:42we get busier, and which allows us to get better. If we were to have opened Brett as it is now,

02:48as a standalone restaurant on its own six years ago, I don't think it would have necessarily

02:53worked. I think we've had to kind of work with our guests, and they've had to build

02:57a sort of build trust with us, and what we're doing. The Glasgow palette is improving, and

03:02what people want, and what people see as being good food, is kind of getting,

03:07they're more demanding of sort of interesting things, and quality to be honest.