Mitchell's Deli, St Andrews

At last I'm getting round to writing about my final (sob) restaurant stop during my visit to St Andrews. We'd spent the day wandering round the town and beaches - we saw the oldest tree in St Andrews (!)..

..I completed the pier walk again, along with Christopher's housemate Yuyan...

...we saw Kate and Wills' old halls...

...and we walked along West Sands (the place where they did the Chariots of Fire running scene!) in the pitch darkness!

After all this I was more than ready for a meal at Mitchell's - a restaurant with possibly one of the nicest exteriors I've ever seen. Beautifully Christmassy and quaint - you can imagine it being a war time butchers or bakery with a queue right out of the door!

As you go in, there's a deli selling delicious looking cheeses, olives, meats etc, and they also sell bottles of dressing and drinks like pink lemonade - if I were Christopher I would spend so much money here to fill my fridge up with treats! They sell Mull cheddar which is a really mature cheddar I tried last time I was here, so I'm definitely going to have to buy some next time I go.

Through an archway to the left you get to the restaurant, which is almost as nice inside as it is out! It had pretty Christmas decorations, and above two raised booth type tables it has these really cool light features made of wine bottles! Sadly I didn't get a photo but I will try to next time.

As we were there at 6, we had the option of ordering off the "Before the Rush" menu - sadly there is only an out of date version of it on the website so I can't link you to it, but here is the normal menu. They also had a good number of specials. After much deliberation (2 menus plus specials to choose from?!?!), I decided to have a special starter, and then main and pudding off the "Before the Rush" menu. Everyone else went for the "Before the Rush" menu for everything.

I chose my starter because it sounded so interesting - "caramelised sausage and apple bruschetta with a honey glaze" is definitely not a typical feature on menus.

Very nice presentation (making what is essentially sausages and bread look attractive is no mean feat!), and the vintage looking plates added to the quaint and cosy feel of the place. Also, this starter was really excellent. Such an interesting concept, and they'd balanced the flavours really well. The sausage was juicy and well cooked (and not too herby!), the honey added a subtle sweetness, and the chutney a sharpness so that no one flavour was too overpowering.

Kiri, Christopher and Anneka went for toasted brioche with mushrooms

Which looked really tasty and would be a definite consideration for next time (although the sharing boards on the main menu have also really taken my fancy!). Lizzie had cajun spiced tomato soup and Natalie had haggis fritters, but sadly I didn't get a photo of either.

For our main courses, we split into two camps - Anneka, Kiri and I went for the breaded haddock and chips, and Lizzie, Christopher and Natalie chose the steak pie (Lizzie and Christopher had chips and Natalie took the sensible option and had mash - pie just has to come with mash!!).

I never usually order fish and chips when I'm not in a fish & chip shop, but I love breaded fish as it's less greasy than batter and has a better texture I think, and also I absolutely love tartare sauce (it may seem weird I would choose to order a whole meal around that but it is such a good sauce!). I thought it was a really good meal. The fish was light and flaky and the breadcrumbs added a nice crunch, and the chips were soft, fat and fluffy! The tartare sauce was tangy and I went through two pots, and could probably have had more.

I usually prefer pies which have shortcrust pastry completely encasing them, rather than pies with a puff pastry lid, but everyone really enjoyed this one and it did look good, with big chunks of tender looking meat in a thick gravy.

Everyone who had pudding went for the same thing - sticky toffee!!

I had heard rave reviews about this sticky toffee, and luckily I wasn't disappointed. The sponge was moist and satisfyingly "spongey" (for want of a better word, but at least it lived up to its namesake - nothing worse than a non spongey sponge!), and the sauce was thick, buttery and sweet. The ice cream presented a nice cool contrast and cut through the sweet sauce nicely, ensuring it wasn't overpoweringly sweet.

You can see the wine bottle light fixture in the background!

Something else that I should definitely mention is that the service was really excellent. Christopher works for Forgan's (which is owned by the same people) and had seen on the staff group that Mitchell's were extremely short staffed that night, and the food did take a little longer than you might expect, but our waitress, Carmen, was so friendly that it more than made up for it. She was constantly upbeat even though it must have been pretty stressful for her (she was new as well) and it made the whole experience even nicer, so thanks Carmen!

I think Mitchell's would probably receive the accolade of my favourite restaurant in St Andrews - the menu, décor and service all made it a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Like Forgan's, Mitchell's was another place which I revisited on my recent trip to St Andrews with my parents. The food was great again, and the service was friendly - and we even got to sit at one of the tables beneath my favourite wine bottle fixtures!!

My starter was absolutely brilliant again this time (maybe Mitchell's starters are my favourite course!). My mum and I shared their "surf board" which had bread, butter, hot smoked salmon, trout pâté, sardines, peppered mackerel and olive tapenade.

We only realised afterwards that they actually forgot to give us any trout pâté but to be honest everything else was so good that it probably didn't even need any extra! The mackerel was so smoky and soft, the salmon was meaty and fresh, and the sardines were sharp and vinegary! The olives tapenade was salty and delicious on the soft homemade bread, and even just the bread and butter was great!!

My dad had crispy fried haggis balls (haggis was a theme of the week for him!) and Christopher had the creamy mushroom brioche like last time!

 For main I had the veggie lasagne with swiss cheese and artisan bread, my mum had marinated pesto chicken with roasted med veg and melting dolcelatte, Christopher had rump steak (medium well, shame on him!) with peppercorn sauce and chips, and my dad had fish and chips.

 A small disappointment was that my lasagne topping was slightly burnt, which meant the dish was quite a bit drier (and crunchier!) than I would perhaps have liked, but the cheese was nice strong and the vegetables were well cooked - I just maybe wished I'd gone for the sea bass fillets instead! But ah well, next time! My mum loved her chicken and my dad his fish and chips (it was smoked haddock which was definitely an interesting change to the usual cod/haddock!), and Christopher enjoyed his steak a lot - even with the extremely hot peppercorn sauce!! This was another really enjoyable meal at Mitchell's, and again I have to say how good the service was, and the presentation of the food. Already looking forward to my next visit!