Roy Beers: Dining disaster

It's always nice to agree with a man you've never even met, but who puts your own point over quite succinctly and with the benefit of actual experience - and in this case it's Ben Bartlett, catering development manager at Marston's Pub Company. As reported in The Publican this week he dismisses as "rubbish" the claim by the current Good Pub Guide that bar food is too dear.

I'd go a bit farther, because I can positively prove that its claims are not only "rubbish" but grossly misleading, and potentially damaging to a Scottish pub trade whose leading outlets are embattled on a variety of fronts - the boring old smoking ban, the steady acceleration of costs, the threat of ludicrous local operating conditions (including the famous "vertical drinking" curbs), and a fair bit more besides.

This isn't a purely Scottish concern, of course, but I'd argue there's a particular tartan dimension to the Wildly Misleading Pub Guide claim. Glasgow-based quality broadsheet The Herald, reporting the GPG's claim that many pubs are hitting averages of £20 for a two-course lunch, observes that not so long ago the best you could hope for in many Scottish bars was a packet of crisps.

Things have changed, meteorically, over the last two decades or so. Many one-time 100% wet-led bars now have some sort of entry level food offer; wine by the glass has improved out of all recognition, and we have a tight but well-attested bunch of bars which can justifiably be called "gastro pubs" - not a term I'm particularly fond of, but at least it hints at above-average quality.

The GPG's claims have been faithfully recited by the Scottish press - a basic (why basic?) dish like steak and kidney pie allegedly costs £10.50. A lunchtime starter and main course apparently come in at a surprisingly precise sum of £16.76, and if you bung in a glass of wine then you're talking about paying £40 for two. This, mark you, is an "average", meaning there's presumably a substantial number of "pubs" charging still more.

Why, 'though, all the excitement about a UK claim as levelled against Scottish pubs (when, as we've seen, primarily English pub estates, and independents, have enough cause for complaint). Well, back in The Herald again, we find a quote from the Scottish Consumer Council, no less, urging customers to "vote with their feet".

The SCC then goes on to encourage consumers to be "wary of paying restaurant prices in a pub" and "make it clear they will be shopping around for a better deal."

Without any reported qualifying remarks, therefore, the SCC is implicitly taking the GBG claims at face value, which in itself is completely unacceptable in a body which ought to be basing its judgements on rational study and solid statistical evidence. What an ignorant way to insult and denigrate an entire sector.

So from a specious claim in a normally respected guide we now have an apparent automatic endorsement from a watchdog quango and, hey presto, something which suddenly looks like a respectable caucus of opinion damning Scottish pubs (as with English and, I suppose, Welsh) as being unreasonably dear.

To get an idea of how this sort of bilge might be received by the general public a quick look at comments on The Herald's discussion web boards provides some clues - publicans, says one reader, are jacking up food prices to make up for the earnings they've lost because of the smoking ban. Others suggest they're plain greedy and are simply exploiting a supposed upsurge in dining out encouraged by the ban.

However the "advice" from the SCC which annoys me most is the asinine remark that "pubs" shouldn't be charging "restaurant" prices. So at one stroke all pubs are automatically and irredeemably inferior to all restaurants - to which the logical response must be "cabbage".

I wonder whether the SCC has taken the trouble to do any comparative exercises of pubs and restaurants? If a pub has a hard-won reputation for great food, a fully-equipped kitchen, talented chefs - in what way, exactly, is it different from a "restaurant"? It could be argued the restaurant's central proposition is food, while that of the pub is drink, but life is no longer so simple. I can think of half a dozen Glasgow "pubs" which offer better (in my opinion) food, even "cuisine", than some rather expensive and self-regarding "restaurants". They can often offer you a decent beer in good condition, too, whereas "restaurants" seldom have any knowledge or grasp of beer, preferring the high-margin possibilities of wine.

There's also the inconvenient fact that in Scotland a great many "restaurants" trade under public house licences (at least under the current system: the new Licensing Act will eliminate the old pub/restaurant distinction anyway). All "pubs", to the SCC's lazy way of thinking, are boozers, first and foremost, where it's implied the food always has to be shopper-friendly, value-for-money … cheap as oven chips.

Scotland has lagged behind England in pub food until fairly recently, but it is now no longer remarkable to find places selling cooked-from-scratch food at eminently reasonable prices.

However since the GPG and SCC have put all Scottish food pubs in the firing line, and on arguably very selective "evidence", I spent an hour or so checking out actual prices (via the web) in bars in Glasgow and Edinburgh which most people would agree are pitching themselves as above-average.

The Dome in Edinburgh's George Street does charge about £21 for lunch, according to The List Eating and Drinking Guide (broadly the equivalent of Time Out) but it also gets high praise - and is, in pub lunch terms, surely near the top of the tree. It is emphatically not "average". Most other bars I would regard as serving "good" food in Glasgow or Edinburgh can give you two courses at £15 or under, while those serving what I'd see as adequate "pub grub" charge £5 to £9. Even some of the ritzier tourist bars are charging maybe £12 to £15 for two courses - and, again, this is the top end of the scale.

I can't remember what they charged me in the superb Trades House bar in Dundee last time I dined there but it was washers, relatively speaking, in terms of both quality and service.

One of my personal favourites, The Goat in Argyle Street, Glasgow, has a first class menu of cooked-from-scratch "pub grub" which includes, for example, seafood paella and garlic bread at £7.95, or lunchtime Partick Pie (supplied by a first class local baker) and handmade fries at £4.95 - as well as choices including Moules Mariniere at £3.75 or, larger portion, £6.75. Far from being too expensive I think it is under-priced for what you get - a far superior product to typical pub chain caterpack offers - and it is by no means unique.

To cut a long story short, what the gent from Marston's says about English pubs is doubly true of those hard-working, game-raising Scottish pubs which take the trouble to do food well. If you are paying twenty quid you will be expecting something extra special in a Scottish pub - simple as that.

However the damage is done. Plenty of people who are perfectly capable of working out for themselves whether they're getting value for money have been told by the Scottish press that an implicitly substantial number of food-serving pubs are ripping them off blind.

It isn't true. There are, of course, places which don't offer good value or, indeed, good food, but it's relatively rare to find these joints asking you to pay eyewatering prices for the privilege. The story of modern Scottish pub food is, despite the unreasoned cavilling, a bloody good one.

This doesn't happen by accident, as any publican will tell you. Precisely because the smoking ban has given a lift to food sales competition is red hot, and even if a pub wanted to take the mickey it wouldn't get away with it.

But what a sour, negative message for the gormless SCC to put out, without providing any evidence to back up its comments. I hope ou