To most Glaswegians it is just The Chip, a restaurant so ubiquitous in city guides that the Ubiquitous is now redundant…

If you’ve spent any amount of time in Glasgow then perhaps you’ve dined at Ubiquitous Chip, or at least pressed your nose up against the window while walking along the cobbles of Ashton Lane, where it’s located. You’ll have spotted groups of salubrious wine-drunk pals laughing together, because that’s what folk do when they go to the Ubiquitous Chip. They have a good time.

This is a restaurant with regulars, legions of them, many of whom have frequented it since it opened in 1971. This summer they were temporarily displaced when The Chip closed for a £1.2 million restoration, and some were anxious as to what this would entail. They needn’t have worried. “The Ubiquitous Chip has been nurtured and loved for so many years and we wanted to keep that going,” says Claire Kinna of Surface-id, the design studio responsible for the refurb. “We’ve just enhanced it.”

So what has changed? The footprint has expanded, allowing for a larger kitchen and a new speakeasy hidden at the back of the Wee Whisky Bar which can be booked for private dining and events. There’s new comfy seating in the form of wicker-backed chairs and slick leather banquettes, and a new smoky-grey marble-topped bar in the main restaurant. Joining Alasdair Gray’s famous mural (the late artist came here often) are works by Scottish artists including Lucy Gogoliuk and Noreen Bissland, and sculptor Simon Hopkins has created striking cage lights that cascade from the mezzanine into the restaurant. “There’s nothing mass-produced; everything is bespoke,” adds Claire.

It sounds like a lot – and it is – but it still feels reassuringly like the old pal I remember. Just shinier. The restaurant’s famous glass roof, cloudy the last time I visited, is now crystal-clear. “You can see the sky again; it’s totally transformed the space,” says Claire. The cobbled floor is still there, and so too is the Koi carp pond and the oasis of tropical plants that wowed me on my first visit a decade ago.

The menu has also received a sensitive zhuzh from head chef Doug Lindsay, who knows what his patrons love. Nothing out-there or experimental; just solid Scottish produce, cooked well. A sleek strip of mackerel, its metallic scales lightly torched, arrives with a caviar-heaped squid-ink cracker to dip in a dill-andsour cream emulsion. Loch Melfort sea trout comes next, its sweet crab velouté softening the salty tang of samphire. My husband’s dry-aged Borders beef with Roscoff onion disappears before I can try it, so he offers a spoonful of honey-and-oatmeal ice-cream as a welcome consolation.

It’s all very delicious, if not game-changing. But it doesn’t need to move the needle. The Chip invented this particular game, and we’re all still happy to play.

Ubiquitous Chip

12 Ashton Lane

Glasgow

G12 8SJ

Visit the Ubiquitous Chip website | Follow Ubiquitous Chip on Instagram

Style & Sustenance: Montrose, a neighbourhood restaurant like no other