This week’s restaurant has been on my to-do list for about three years now, not least because it sounded so intriguing. Home in Dumfries offers a tasting menu with puzzling dish names such as “messy mozzarella”, “steak and lasagne” and “cheese and potato”, which read a bit as if a child had written out the courses for a pretend dinner party, though online reviews and photographs of the food suggest that the place is actually rather fancy, as well as much loved.
Still, it was sidelined in my rush to the shiny, new, big-city openings of Glasgow or Edinburgh. Or Aberdeen or Inverness or, well, anywhere apart from Dumfries. This Scottish town of 30,000 is not terribly far from England, so it tends to fly under the radar for both tourists and fellow Scots, who perhaps feel it’s “not Scottish enough”, which is is flagrant nonsense. Circa 1605, James I of England and VI of Scotland, ever the optimist, decreed that the vast border area taking in the likes of Cumberland, Dumfriesshire, Selkirkshire and Northumberland, should be called the Middle Shires. This new, inclusive, touchy-feely name for the Borders would reflect the cosy unity between the two countries he planned to usher in during the 17th century. Scotland? England? Who cares? Lines on maps wouldn’t matter – we could all come together as one! The big, soft sod.
Four hundred years on, Dumfries is still very much in Scotland; the white saltire on a blue background waves from flagpoles and pubs, the accent is gorgeously impenetrable for soft southerners such as my other half and, when you eat at Home, they begin dinner by giving you a map of all the local farms that supply them. The Ethical Dairy at Rainton Farm near Gatehouse of Fleet is celebrated alongside mozzarella from Kedar in Mouswald, and there are Nith Valley eggs from Gatelawbridge and veg from Loch Arthur in nearby Beeswing. This is an unashamed celebration of Scotland, of its produce and the place that Home’s owners, Louisa and Thomas Thorne, call home.
Home is defiantly unswaggering: if you want to book, you call Louisa’s mobile (she’ll text you back quickly). There’s no Resy or Open Table to contend with. There’s no fancy website full of loquacious piffle. The name “Home” itself makes it hard to search for on Google, and the opening hours are so limited – Thursday and Fridays only from 5pm to 10pm – that you begin to wonder if Home believes it’s a real restaurant at all. Yet, once you’ve found it, close to the River Nith and despite no obvious signage, and been taken to your table while Fela Kuti and Belle and Sebastian play in the background, it all makes complete sense and is incredibly likable.
Home was once housed above a pub, but has now moved into a rather large industrial space titivated only by a few strings of fairylights, some wall hangings, a big, warm welcome and some very good hummus and fresh focaccia. I’d take that over snootiness, crystal chandeliers and caviar any time. This is indeed, as so many had told me, a restaurant built on pure heart, serving a menu that’s at times quite fancy, but still has about it an utter dearth of pretension, as well as house pinot grigio at £3.50 a glass. You could blow up to £24 on a bottle of carmenere should you want to be flash, but, price-wise, that’s where the list peaks, although someone has drawn a lovely mermaid on the single-sheet paper menu.
Then a perfect smoked haddock scotch egg arrives, runny-centred and crisp outside, on an emerald green velouté of wild garlic, followed by that beguiling “messy mozzarella”, which turns out to be the absolute opposite of a slapdash mess. Rather, it’s a beautifully executed dish featuring the innards of fresh, handmade mozzarella with basil and heritage tomato. “Cheese and potato”, meanwhile, turns out to be a classy plate of baby potatoes with an emulsion of something cheddary. Steak and lasagne is exactly what it says it is, albeit designed to complement each other, with the beef on the rare side and the chunk of lasagne fried, yet still oozing with bechamel – a nigh-impossible task that I’ve seen many well-intentioned chefs mess up. Perhaps Home is so incredibly Scottish because it refuses to be up itself in any way, including the doodle-covered menu and the Haribo-style sweets that turn up with the handwritten bill at the end.
When it comes to the cooking, however, it’s probably one of the best restaurants within 100 miles or more. They’ll probably hate me for saying so, though, because now they’ll perhaps feel as if they ought to open maybe on Saturdays, too, serving their glorious squab pigeon on confit potatoes or the light, sweet, deliriously good honey panna cotta in a little jar with a honeycomb-style tuile on top.
“Who is cooking?” I asked Louisa as we settled up. “My husband,” she said, pointing to the open kitchen. “He’s very good,” I said. “Oh, I won’t be telling him,” she smiled, handing me my sweeties to take home. “It will only go to his head.” This might be the most Scottish thing I’ve ever heard. Home, never change, please. You are authentically, refreshingly perfect.
Home 50 White Sands, Dumfries, 07896 355074. Open Thurs & Fri only, 5-10pm. Seven-course tasting menu only, £45 a head, plus drinks and service
