Ox and Finch is one of Glasgow's best restaurants. The Sauchiehall Street favourite has reopened with a new look and a new head chef. We visited for a chat with Craig Nelson about what to expect from the latest menu.
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00:00Good morning from the West End. It's a very sunny day here. We're just on Suckey Hall Street beside Kelman Grove Park.
00:07It's a time of change for Ox and Finch. Long established. You may think that you know the restaurant from being here over the last 10 years,
00:17but it's returned with a brand new look, a new head chef. I'm having a chat this morning with Craig Nelson,
00:23who's just finished his morning blowtorching of the fish in preparation for a busy day ahead.
00:29How have you been fine with things since you reopened this week?
00:33Good. It's been stressful. It's been full on. I don't think we've stopped from the minute we walk through the door to the minute we leave.
00:41The nights have been late. We've been getting out at half one, two in the morning a few nights.
00:45Just trying to get the clean down out of the systems, but we're getting there. We're better every day, which was what we always planned.
00:52Loads of different obstacles each day, things that you don't think about, and then it happens.
00:56You're like, right, what did we do here? But the team, like, the work they put in is just, like, crazy.
01:02The effort they put in, how much they care is a big thing, because you can put in a good amount of work and work 15 hours a day,
01:09but not really care about it. But I think when everyone's, because it's an open kitchen as well,
01:14and they see the guest reactions and guests are coming up and interacting with us, I think it kind of gives them that extra boost.
01:20That's always been the buzz of this place, right? Because, you know, like, there is a close relationship between the chefs in the kitchen doing their things,
01:26the staff, the guests that are coming in, especially regulars.
01:30And I've always sensed that, you know, like, that chefs will have particular favourites on the menu,
01:34and that they'll get a big kick out of when their one's kind of pulling ahead of their neighbouring chefs.
01:38And that's why I wanted to make sure there was, I mean, there's only one dish on the current menu that was on the closing menu,
01:47and it's the cod cheeks.
01:48Like, and it's, we sell a lot of them, and I wanted it, I wanted people to come back and be like,
01:54oh, God, look, that's still on the menu.
01:56And then they look at the menu, and there's, oh, my God, that's, like, there's so many other different things on the menu.
02:01So that and the chips, with a few tweaks on the chips, and we now cook the cod cheeks down with dashi instead of chicken stock,
02:08and we season the chips with a, like, a dehydrated yeast and herb kind of salt,
02:13just to kind of change it and kind of, well, try and make it tastier, really.
02:18So, yeah, they two are definitely the high-selling dishes out of the whole menu, which is good to see.
02:25You were here before, so tell me about that first time here, and then what happened in between.
02:30Cool, so, yeah, I started here, I mean, I cannot remember the year, but I was here for four years,
02:35joined as Chef de Partie, and then left as sous-chef for about four years,
02:41and then I went to London during COVID, which was a silly mistake,
02:44because I was up, the first four months were just up, up in Glasgow, back down to London for a good amount of time.
02:52So it was frustrating, not really getting into the flow of things.
02:55And then, yeah, I had, like, five, five solid years down there at the Harwood,
02:59and I joined there as CDP, and then about a year and a half into it,
03:04I went up to junior sous, after Sally left, and then we changed a few things in the kitchen,
03:10Jake left, Josh, the sous-chef, moved up to head chef,
03:15and then I took Josh's position as sous-chef, and I was there for another two years.
03:20So that's kicking at quite a high level, right?
03:21Yeah, it was crazy, yeah.
03:23And what did you learn there that you brought back here?
03:27Organisation.
03:29I think I definitely realised the passion for it down there, and the mentality that you need.
03:35Like, you are going to get picked up on a lot of stuff,
03:38but it's about bouncing back from it and not becoming upset from it,
03:42and realising that you've just been taught something rather than treat it as a downfall, a loss almost.
03:47And the standard was the biggest thing.
03:50Like, no matter if we had 90 covers in or we had 30 covers in,
03:53or we're really busy, or one person short in the kitchen or the KP didn't show up,
03:58it would always be the exact same every single day.
04:00And that really got drilled into, is always do the same things the same way every day,
04:06so you've got that system.
04:08So if something does go wrong, the system's still in place,
04:11you know you can kind of work around it.
04:13But, yeah, I mean, the standard was the biggest thing,
04:16and just the fact that you couldn't stop all day.
04:18And these guys have took to it really well, because I said that to them,
04:20I was like, we're not going to be able to chill out for the first,
04:23well, never really, but especially for the first six months.
04:26Like, it's going to be the most spoken about opening of 2025, by far.
04:31Like, it's an institution in Glasgow, so...
04:34And they've took to it really well and tried to create that standard.
04:36Like, no one's just tried to put something up to the past because they're busy.
04:40And I said that in all the meetings we had before.
04:44Like, we can come in every single day and do OK and leave at the end of the night,
04:48or we can come in every day and do really, really, really, really well
04:50and leave and you're walking home at night and you're like,
04:54God, that was a really hard day, but everything was done exactly.
04:57And the guests have seen it, and Johnny and Daniel have seen it in the past.
05:00Like, there's a lot of things that were kind of,
05:02oh, you know, come on, let's just look a bit better and change it
05:04and really kind of focus on it.
05:06And it's good because Kevin's here, so when I'm, when me and Kevin are on at the moment together,
05:11on shift, he'll kind of jump on the pass and I'll kind of float and show guys stuff.
05:16And then vice versa as well.
05:18If it's a different period, I'll just do the pass and Kevin will float,
05:22which is good because when I'm, when I'm not here,
05:26Kevin needs to know obviously everything in the kitchen.
05:28So it's worth putting in the effort and like, you know,
05:31being, staying a few hours later and coming in a few hours earlier
05:34to make sure everyone knows what they're doing.
05:35Because then when I'm not here, if I'm on holiday and Kevin's got a day off
05:39and we promote people, then we know everyone knows how it should be.
05:43And teaching in front of house that as well.
05:45This is how we want it to be.
05:47If something tries to leave the pass and it's not like that,
05:49then just give us a little shout and we'll, and we'll fix it.
05:53But it's been really good the last, we've done what, five, five services now?
05:57Only three of them are friends and family.
05:59And then Tuesday and Wednesday.
06:01Yesterday was definitely the hardest day
06:02because it was 250 covers of paying customers straight through.
06:06Yeah, that's a regular day.
06:06And everyone was like, everyone was deflated.
06:09But then you need to pick it back up for the clean down
06:11because you don't want to be here that late.
06:13So you need to find that second burst of energy
06:15to kind of, to keep pushing everyone and get the fridges done
06:18and all the stoves cleaned and everything.
06:21So it's, but that's been good.
06:22It's been really, really good.
06:23Ox and Finch is, it will get a lot of attention from the city
06:26because, you know, it's a well-established restaurant.
06:28It's something that people identify with the best of cooking in the city.
06:33Yeah.
06:33But, you know, like international magazines,
06:35when they look at Glasgow, they talk about Ox and Finch.
06:37And, you know, like it's a award-winning restaurant.
06:39So you're inheriting something that you want to push forward.
06:42Of course.
06:42What do you want to bring to the equation?
06:44What gets you excited in terms of ingredients and things
06:47that you want to introduce to Ox and Finch?
06:49Yeah, I think the seasonality part of it is massive.
06:53Like if you look at the menu, they're now like 70% of the stuff
06:57that's in season in the UK is on the menu.
07:00We had a little pushback just before the opening.
07:02So the opening menu we had was, well, the menu we're kind of sitting with
07:05was like kind of late winter, early spring.
07:08And we had everything set, everything was like set and so on.
07:11So we said, well, we'll just push back the kind of spring menu chain
07:14just a few weeks because everything was settled.
07:16The costumes were done.
07:17The press had kind of little bits of the menu.
07:20So we wanted to keep to that.
07:22Yeah, seasonality and kind of make it quite fun as well, the menu.
07:26At the Harwood, there was a lot of classic techniques and flavours.
07:31So there's a little bit of that here as well.
07:33Ox and Finch has always been that kind of fun, exciting menu.
07:37You come in and, yeah, you can have a lovely bit of braised beef
07:39with palm puree, well, garlic and bordelais,
07:41but then you need to have like the seabream crudel with dashi and citrus.
07:45It's something that's kind of, you get spicy things.
07:48You've got kind of classic things as well.
07:49So it's trying to find that balance.
07:51But that's what it's really good about here is you're not stuck to one kind of,
07:56like cuisine or style.
07:58Like the Harwood, it was always like everything had to be British,
08:01which was great.
08:01It became harder because everything you used had to be British.
08:04The flavours had to be British,
08:06so you couldn't use like paprika or burrata or anything,
08:12because obviously that doesn't come from the UK.
08:13So it was fun being able to kind of like just explore the kind of things.
08:21Yeah, and just kind of bring the standard Ox has always had.
08:25Obviously with the new kitchen making up that standard,
08:27which is massive.
08:28The Athenor suite is a machine.
08:31A lot of the stuff we can do on that is really, really good.
08:33It's smaller, but there's more energy in it.
08:36I mean, you come in every morning,
08:38you're like, God, look how good it looks.
08:41And then six hours previous to that, the guys are scrubbing it.
08:44So it's a good thing to kind of see that part of it as well.
08:49Yeah, just kind of, yeah, that's it.
08:51Okay, after cooking at the Harwood, after being in London,
08:54after chefing at that level,
08:58lots of opportunities open.
09:00See, you come back here,
09:02obviously this is a great opportunity for you,
09:04but do you see it in a wider sense
09:06that Glasgow's a good city for a chef
09:08if you're starting to return to?
09:09Yeah, of course.
09:10When I went down to London, the food scene was good.
09:13And then over the course of the kind of four or five years,
09:15I've seen it kind of getting better and better.
09:18And I always said that I would always probably end up back in Glasgow.
09:20I'm not saying I'm going to be in Glasgow the rest of my life.
09:24But I think the story of me coming back here
09:28was a big one.
09:29I started here when I was a kid.
09:31I was like 17, pretty much.
09:35And this opened my eyes to how restaurants should be run.
09:39It was food-focused and guest-focused.
09:42And I've seen that from a kitchen point of view.
09:44I wasn't senior at that point.
09:45And then I became senior, seen it again.
09:48And then when I was at the Harwood,
09:49the chefs were always such a part of the guest experience.
09:53If we had a VIP in or we had industry people in
09:56or just people that were foodies,
09:57we used to have loads of regulars that came in,
10:00we would always be part of their experience
10:01going down and speaking to them,
10:03getting a little extra dish up there for them to try.
10:08So, yeah, I think the food scene here now is great.
10:13You've got Unilome, Kale Brew, The Gannet, Margo, Seb's.
10:16And they're all different in their own styles,
10:19which is good.
10:21And then, yeah, when me, Johnny and Daniel had the conversation,
10:24it felt right.
10:25And it was hard leaving London
10:26because you're down there for five years.
10:27You're almost going to call it your home.
10:30You meet people for life and you kind of get settled there.
10:33But then I think it's classic kind of chef.
10:36They're never really settled.
10:38They always kind of want something else.
10:39And mum was happy.
10:41I was coming back home.
10:41So that was a big one.
10:44Well, welcome home.
10:46And I look forward to being in for London soon.
10:47Thank you, Craig.
10:48Thank you very much.