We went to Mr Pook’s Kitchen in Castle Douglas while on holiday in the south-west of Scotland, an oft-uncharted piece of the UK even to the keenest travellers, who’ll shrug at the names Gatehouse of Fleet, Borgue and Dundrennan before making a tremendous dog’s dinner of pronouncing Kirkcudbright (it’s Kir-koo-bree, by the way).
I know this only because I spent so much time here as a child, leaving pieces of my heart on the beaches close to what is glamorously called the E18 Euroroute or, more specifically, the A75 portion of this Euroroute that links Stranraer to Gretna. The beaches of south-west Scotland are not Santa Monica-esque: they are craggy, windswept and sometimes unprettily mole-coloured, yet I have pined for them over the years, and for the misty views across the Solway Firth and days drinking Barr’s cola on a deckchair beside my mother’s sky-blue Austin Princess, reading an Oor Wullie annual, with trips to rudimentary beach cafes that sold Scotch pies in paper bags and iced buns, which were a hotdog roll with a sugary pink top flecked with hundreds and thousands. Some days we rarely saw another soul. There was a sense that the south-west, not far from our home in Carlisle, was our secret; meanwhile, the rest of the holidaymakers were off up north, demanding the full tartan and Trossachs tourist experience.
The south-west is largely unchanged, unspoiled even, today. There are excellent cafes serving cakes and some wonderful farm shops, but I smiled at an American tourist ordering a Shirley Temple in a pub, bewildered that the bar had no maraschino cherries, grenadine or fresh lime juice. “I can do you a wee can of ginger ale,” the bartender said, biting her lip. Which leads us on to Mr Pook’s, which has lived for the past couple of years in a rather grand former bank building. Mr Pook, it turns out, is an actual person: you’ll see him in the open kitchen the moment you walk through the door. The welcome from both him and the staff is warm. Pink Moon by Nick Drake floated over the ether and there was Irn-Bru on the menu. Happiness is not a destination; it is little moments such as these.
Mr Pook’s is fancy, hearty and possibly a little more pricey than everywhere else around these parts – and with good reason, because it’s a menu of fine-quality local meat, fish and veg, served in painstakingly concocted ways. A starter of Dullarg duck egg is wrapped in a crisp, panko coating and served on a nicely seasoned white bean stew with dashes of root vegetable crisp, and a white-bread soldier made with truffled Rainton Tomme cheese and radish. On cutting into the egg, the yolk oozes. These things are not easy to pull off.
As our starters arrived, Thursday night Mr Pook’s filled up with birthday dinners and homecoming celebrations. This is a special-treat place – the kind that sends out amuse-bouches of cep broth and freshly made bread with smoked roe butter – and one that the community clearly loves. We ate an oddly delicious starter of nocellara olives with cucumber sorbet, and another of smoked lamb on crisp potato, which led me to say: “I bet Sunday lunch at Pook’s house is something very special. How do we get an invite?” If so, we’d like a variation of the main dish we ate that evening: slow-braised ox cheek, with some rare fillet, doused in a cep sauce, with a malbec jus – OK, gravy – and some buttery winter greens. Outside, spring was making its first shy appearance, but this was the epitome of winter on a plate.
Charles drank Black Galloway Sulwath ale and we went halves on a plate of venison carpaccio on smears of black garlic with sloes. Customers passed by the kitchen making promises to bring Mr Pook some wild garlic and other foraged things. That’s the kind of community interaction some kitchens would kill for.
A generous plate of pan-roasted turbot with langoustine appeared on creamed leeks with bisque cream. A peculiar sensation began to flood through my body, one I’ve not experienced for a long time: I was full. Full to the “imagining pyjamas and a nice sudoku” level, rather than “eating cream crackers in my pyjamas while staring at the bill” half-empty.
We should have left then, but there was bread-and-butter pudding topped with a thick layer of marmalade on the menu and it was served with fresh rum-and-raisin ice-cream – oh, and custard, too, just to be sure – a belt-and-braces approach to pudding that I appreciate. South-west Scotland may not be Santa Monica, but I wouldn’t change a single thing.
• Mr Pook’s Kitchen, The Old Bank, 38 King Street, Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway, 01556 504000. Open Wed-Sat, lunch noon-2pm, dinner 6pm-late. Lunch from about £35 a head à la carte, dinner from about £50 a head, both plus drinks and service.
• This article was amended on 10 April 2023 to correct the spelling and pronunciation of Kirkcudbright.
