Windows Restaurant

For a city with such an architecturally diverse skyline, Glasgow is curiously bereft of rooftop restaurants. While Edinburgh boasts The Tower, Oloroso, The Forth Floor Restaurant at Harvey Nicks etc etc, Windows Restaurant on the seventh floor of the Carlton George hotel is your only option if you want to dine in the sky in the Dear Green Place. Given this head start, it would have been tempting for them to rest on their laurels and churn out undemanding culinary staples. It's all the more exciting, therefore, to happen upon head chef Will Hay's new menu, which scores big points by being both strikingly ambitious and plate-lickingly edible.

To start, my companion Ryan (I realise this makes me sound like an elderly EM Forster dowager) tucked into a suitably bucolic slab of country-style terrine; coarse and toothsome, it was pepped up with homemade chutney. My opening course was the polar opposite - daintily plated slivers of undyed smoked haddock with baby asparagus, sweet raw peas, crispy crab fritter and a tongue-tingling lemon jelly. A lot going on, but everything gelled perfectly on the palate.

The same could be said of Ryan's main, a meaty slab of slow cooked lamb topped with puy lentils and accompanied by goats cheese, crisped pancetta and a spring-green pea puree. My main was a more conservative choice, but fell on the right side of comfort food - moist supreme of chicken with mash, cream sauce and a tangle of genuinely wild mushrooms.

Gratifyingly, desserts weren't a hasty afterthought and showed the same level of artfulness - three mini torpedoes of dense chocolate and hazlenut mousse came crowned with mascarpone ice cream, while the lemon jelly of my starter made a re-appearance, this time smothered in a divine basil and black pepper cream with snap-thin pistachio biscuits.

Windows Restaurant is ideal for special occasions and the prices do reflect this. The perfect location to show off the city to visitors, it proves that Glasgow isn't and shouldn't be afraid of a spectacle restaurant.