The Craft Diner in Dunkeld could be a rail success with less bluster

Whilst cookery books increasingly threaten to take over my house, two of my favourite food-related books have very few recipes in them yet have remained consistently essential reading over the years.

If I was the kind of person who kept books by the toilet, two of my main choices would be Harold McGee’s classic McGee on Food & Cooking and Jeffrey Steingarten’s brilliant The Man Who Ate Everything.

Both books demonstrate the rigour and passion needed to produce really good food.

I was reminded of such qualities when thinking about this review, which is centred around a burger shack housed in a shipping container berthed just off the A9 at Dunkeld and Birnam Station.

Simple as that might sound, a visit there prompted so many questions I don’t know whether my life will be long enough to provide the answers.

The Craft Diner is very much the culinary business baby of chef and owner Orkun Cevik, who set it up after losing his job at Dunkeld House Hotel just before the first lockdown.

The Craft Diner at Dunkeld and Birnam train station.

Opening in August 2021, The Craft Diner’s well-documented struggles with the bureaucracy of planning (actually quite normal for a lot of new businesses) soon seemed to be vindicated by the popularity of its offerings, a success which has been amplified by some smart use of social media to spread the message.

The story here isn’t just about burgers – it’s very much that of the underdog, the stoic presence who triumphs over the odds, much of it documented on Instagram.

A recent review in another newspaper saw a post from the diner exclaiming “Just read this review…OFFICIALLY THE BEST F… BURGER. I think the first chapter is done….new design is arriving soon….@scotrail has to move faster and quicker”.

This is not a man who wants to wait around too long, which could be an issue when he’s chosen to set up business in a railway station.

Surroundings

We arrived at mid-day on July 6 and were guided to the shipping container by the sight of a few trestle tables at the furthest end of the station car park.

The diner itself backs onto the station’s southbound platform, somehow echoing the melancholy juxtaposition of modernity (a repurposed shipping container) with tradition (the beautiful derelict original station building dates back to 1856 when Dunkeld was the original terminus of the Perth – Dunkeld Railway).

Orkun Cevik is serving up some top burgers at The Craft Diner.

If you peer through the filthy windows you can still see the ticket office with its open fireplace. How glamorous it all must have been!

If we hadn’t been guided by the trestle tables we might have been guided by the huge noise – surprisingly, not from a passing train or the roar of the A9 but from a radio booming out Prime Minister’s Questions, on the day it was reported that Boris Johnson was “up for a fight as clamour to quit grows” (he would finally announce his resignation the following day).

I mention this because Prime Minister’s Questions on July 6 was an absolutely hysterical cacophony of bleating, braying discord, and hearing it boom out over this already incongruous setting gave a bizarrely edgy feel to the whole dining experience.

If every day right now didn’t engender a feeling that the apocalypse was about to hit us, having this political fin de siècle experience whilst looking at a burger menu in a car park at Dunkeld and Birnam station surely reminded us of the absurdity of much of modern life.

I mention this jocularly, but also slightly seriously, because there was no attempt to turn this radio rabble down, even when other customers appeared and the noise totally swamped the environment.

I’m not a huge fan of intrusive music in cafes and restaurants anyway but this was something else – a setting on the edge of great beauty (despite the A9 thundering by) with what felt like an increasingly manic reminder of real life booming at you while you attempted to have lunch.

Just as in cafes and restaurants, I often ask if the audio soundtrack is for the benefit of the customers or the staff.

But why did this experience remind me of the two books I mentioned at the beginning?

Well, The Craft Diner is a place that might be small, but it packs quite a punch and takes itself very seriously indeed. And both books are a reminder that successful cooking, however simple, is something that depends on an alchemical reaction between ingredients, presentation, respect for tradition and innovation.

The Man Who Ate Everything opens with a 32-page discourse on finding a foolproof formula for making the perfect sourdough loaf. A subsequent chapter, Playing Ketchup, is a 14-page celebration of tomato ketchup where the red anointment is treated as seriously as life itself.

Steingarten, one of America’s top food writers, opines that “ketchup stands in the top tier of the world’s cold or tepid non-dessert sauces. It is surely our proudest, perhaps our only, homegrown sauce achievement”.

This studious intent, this desire to get to the heart of the life-force of what makes us feel good when we eat, is something very much exploited by The Craft Diner’s messaging – some of which, incidentally, is stridently anti ketchup. In a burger bar! Forsooth!!

Much is made here of its difference from other burger places and products and, whilst it’s true that the burgers here are very good, I have to say I don’t really get the big fuss about it all.

What I do get is the thrill of the chase, something I buy into as much as the next person when looking for a good meal.

When someone says they know somewhere serving the best seafood but it’s only open certain days of the week, in a hard- to find location, and for walk-ins only, I’m in. I immediately want to go.

Food critics are no different because the desire for new experiences is a large part of what keeps the whole story novel and exciting. Everyone loves a discovery and if it’s an unusual one then all the better.

The Food

I admire the chutzpah of The Craft Diner because their stance is quite uncompromising. Much is made online (and also in a few very helpful replies to my questions) about how different they are.

Emphasis is piled on their almost renegade approach to burgers with impressive talk of quality ingredients, low prices and the sheer incongruity of daring to put a shipping container selling burgers at Dunkeld Station.

Murray’s burger choice from the Craft Diner.

Whilst the above is all true – and I really admire the drive and ambition of this one-man operation – these burgers are noteworthy for being very good but there is a slight sense around it all of the story being over-hyped, not least by the owner himself.

Yes, the beef for the classic burgers is good and well-sourced – ground chuck and brisket from the esteemed Dunkeld Butchers, plus egg yolk is what makes these burgers what they are.

There is no doubt that the products served here are better than average and the result of careful consideration by a smart mind.

But are they the best? Are they good enough to live up to posts which claim “we are different. We are unusual. We have #attitude and that’s why we have visitors from all over the country. Serves 99% fresh. You will get refused to (be) served sometime if you try to change the burgers. That’s the way we protect our high standards!”.

Well, when I say they’re the best burgers you’re going to get served from a shipping container on the A9, this isn’t in anyway a putdown.

It’s just that I don’t think the burgers served here (and, regretfully, I have to base this review on one visit where we ate two burgers) are appreciably different from similar quality burgers I’ve eaten in many other places.

So, my classic Craft Burger (chosen after I’d asked the chef which is his most popular burger and he’d replied that they all were) was £7.50 and for that you get a great quality burger with bacon, mixed grilled onions, jalapeno peppers, BBQ sauce and Emmental cheese, all housed in a classic burger bun.

It was delicious and good value; chips were £2 and good home-made coleslaw was also £2.

The only vegetarian option available on our visit was the Port Mushroom burger, which was also £7.50.

David said it was delicious, the meaty portobello mushroom stuffed with wild mushrooms, parsley, spices and herbs, and topped with smoked cheese.

I’m not quite sure why this vegetarian burger would be the same price as a prime meat product but since the burgers are so reasonably priced anyway, who am I to quibble?

David’s original choice of a veg toasty (sic) was refused because no mixed peppers were available, although, oddly, we’re sure we saw a box of said peppers appear as we ate our lunch.

Ok, this is the difficult bit, and the part that feels churlish even as I type it.

The intransigence shown when we asked about vegetarian options and when I asked which was the most popular burger could be attributed to someone who is so proud of their product that they have little time to mess around talking about it.

It could also be explained by the fact this is a busy one-man operation which also supplies takeaways.

But I have to say I feel that there’s a certain “my way or the highway” vibe about this place which made dining here a slightly combative experience.

This was amplified when I later went online and saw a series of posts that seemed to reflect a rather assertive approach to customer relations, with much talk against people who request dietary changes to any of the dishes, people who expect tomato sauce with their burgers and, most bewilderingly, anyone who wants vinegar on their chips.

I am absolutely fine with anyone who feels evangelical about the food they produce, and I love purism in cooking but, let’s face it, this is a burger we’re talking about here and I don’t understand why you’d deny anyone vinegar with their chips when the chips themselves aren’t even hand cut on the premises.

The Craft burger with bacon, jalapenos, BBQ sauce and emmental cheese with fries.

Suddenly all the huff and puff about being different and being 99% fresh feels more like a marketing tool than anything else, especially when I checked whether the mayonnaise was freshly made (I had seen the catering sized empty tub round the back of the container).

No one is saying buying-in chips and mayo is a crime. Most small businesses do it, either through shortage of staff, shortage of space (certainly a factor here), economics or just pure laziness.

But what I do object to is the hectoring tone adopted here, as if someone had decided that Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare’s was going to be kept alive in rural Perthshire, with the anger directed at some poor soul who just wanted ketchup with their burger or vinegar with their chips.

Verdict

I enjoyed my burger in this unusual location and admire the ambition of this chef as he starts his journey to make himself and his product a recognisable brand.

It’s just I feel he needs to lighten up a bit because sometimes, with the A9 mere feet away, enforcing a “my way or the highway” ethos might make it all too easy for people like me to choose the latter.