City Café

The 2013 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £5.95 (+p&p).

This review is taken from the current (2013) edition.

Having ditched its semi-fine dining menu along with it its AA rosette, the City Café has gone down the 'home favourites' route to suit its regular customers. Steak pie, beef lasagne and burgers probably suit the hungry hotel guest who doesn’t want any ‘posh nonsense’ for dinner every night, or the gaggles of gig-goers on their way to the SECC. The restaurant is a relatively stylish, standard-issue hotel dining room with big photographic prints of Glasgow smattered across the walls. The one thing that sets it apart is the fantastic view across the Clyde; in summer time there is ample outdoor seating beside the river. However, La Rive Gauche it isn’t. A mountainous starter of cobb salad includes some tasty ingredients, but lacks cohesion of flavours. A main course of Toulouse sausages comes with sweet potato mash and a sundried tomato and green bean salad – again, some great flavours and textures on their own, but together they lack unity. A Baileys crème brûlée is pleasant in texture, but is sadly lacking in Baileys. Perhaps this kind of meal is just what one needs when staying in the hotel, but otherwise a bit of a let-down.

• High point: Outdoor seating by the river
• Low point: Bland food compared to others in this category