Dinner at the Peat Inn

For David’s birthday, the Colgate students gave him a gift certificate to the Peat Inn, which is a fine dining restaurant about 10 minutes outside of St. Andrews. Last night, we called in Christy and Annette, two of the students that spend a lot of time with the kids, as babysitters, and headed out. Our reservations weren’t until 8pm, so we went into town for a drink at the Central pub beforehand. When we arrived, the place was packed, and we snagged the very last table that was still open. While there, we talked about how the British have the edge over Americans on going out for a drink—this place was full of people who were just done with work or class and who were probably planning to hang out for a few hours with their friends, then would be home in bed at a reasonable hour. That’s a much better system than the way it’s done in the States, where one waits to go out until 10pm and stays until the middle of the next morning, then writes off the entire next day because of a lack of sleep. Or at least that’s how I hear people who go out in the States do it, since David and I can rarely stay up late enough to go.

After our drink, we drove out to the Peat Inn, which is often listed among the best restaurants in Scotland. They have a bevy of awards listed on their website, but upon arriving, one would never guess that the place is so highly acclaimed. Aside from being in the middle of nowhere, it’s not much to look at from the outside either: a low, one-story whitewashed stucco building from the 1700s, built right up against the single-track road, with a wee gravel parking lot off to one side. There’s a tiny wooden door off-center at the front, facing the road, with no window in it, so we gingerly opened it and went through. Once we were inside, though, we realized that it was going to be a memorable dinner! The door opened into an intimate lounge (photo above!), with sets of leather armchairs arranged in small groupings around a huge stone fireplace. A hostess met us at the door and asked us to sit in one of the seats, then brought us a leather tray with a small bowl of olives, a glass filled with long, thin root vegetable crisps standing on end, and two tiny squares of polenta topped with a tomato chutney and a petite pepper that looked as if it was a piece to Emma’s Playmobil dollhouse. She also gave us the evening menu to peruse while we waited for a table, along with a wine list that was so long that it began with a table of contents. We could choose to have the set evening dinner menu, which featured a starter, a main and a dessert, or we could choose off the a la carte menu. It was a bit difficult for us to make a decision, mostly because neither of us knew what most of the things listed actually were. Should we have the velouté of wild leek with chicken boudin or the carpaccio of scallops with warm kedgeree? How does one decide if one is not sure what a velouté or a carpaccio is?

We eventually told the hostess that we would have the evening’s set menu, and she showed us to our table in a small room full of overly ornate sideboards that looked out on a lovely garden. She gave us each our requested glass of Gëwurztraminer and a small knot of bread. The fixed menu was supposed to begin with a roasted asparagus soup, which neither of us had been too interested in, so we had asked to change our starters when we placed our order in the lounge. I chose the poached monkfish and quail’s eggs with a pissaladière of warm goat cheese and David asked for the seared breast of home-smoked wood pigeon with roots, fruits and prunes poached in Earl Grey. Our main was a wing of skate served over dauphinois potato and green beans in a tomato fondue, which we ordered despite not being completely clear on what skate was. I was pretty sure it was a kind of a flat fish, though I was a bit curious about how a flat fish could have a wing, or if the wing was the best part of the fish—I really haven’t ever had the opportunity to form an opinion about the best cut of skate. Our dessert was a milk chocolate mousse served with white chocolate and lime ice cream and passionfruit coulis, though we were also quite tempted by the “trolley” of Scottish cheeses that was offered at the end of the meal as well. The meal ended with cappuccino and petits fours—a small madeleine dusted in powdered sugar, an almond-coated truffle the size of a pearl, and a wee square of ginger jelly that tasted a bit like a Sour Patch Kid to me (which I of course didn’t admit…even to David!).

Our meal took several hours, and though the food was excellent (it tasted good but was gorgeous on the plate—I now know that quail’s eggs are delicious and a wing of skate is a bit cartilaginious, if that is a word…) the best part was eavesdropping on the conversations going on around us. All of the other diners were a good bit older than we were, and it was clear that having a dinner like this one was par for the course for most of them—just the usual way to pass a Thursday night. The couple behind us were expecting out-of-town guests over the weekend and were planning their menu—they planned to serve a fish pie for lunch, and were intending to have salmon for dinner but were concerned that it was too much seafood at once so were considering changing to lamb. Actually, the wife of the couple was doing all the talking about the menu, though her husband was doing an excellent job of managing to sound interested in the topic throughout the meal—I decided that either he was a foodie, or that they had been married a long, long time! The people on the other side of us were two couples, all of whom were golfers and were discussing the Jubilee Course (originally meant for ladies only but now one of the toughest courses around) and the Castle Course at St. Andrews, and it was clear that they had played the Castle earlier that day. I’m not sure what they did for a profession, but it was clear that it must have been something quite lucrative, if they could drop £120 in greens fees EACH followed by a dinner that must have run them over £250. There was a third couple in the room as well, and though I couldn’t hear their conversation, I was pretty confident that David and I were the only ones in the room discussing how I needed to get up early to supervise the P7 class at Greyfriars the next morning as they picked up rubbish along Langlands Avenue!