Review: The Great Angus Dinner at Rae’s in Montrose was simply that – just great!

By Brian Stormont

October 3 2022, 5:00pm

Panna cotta, Sacred Grounds coffee and parsnip ice cream, vanilla madeleine and Sacred Grounds espresso syrup.

Using the very best produce Angus has to offer, The Great Angus Dinner was a triumph. Brian Stormont was honoured to be present.

Angus is often referred to as the bread basket of Scotland when it comes to food and drink and an event hosted by Appetite for Angus last week displayed just that.

The Great Angus Dinner was held to showcase the incredible range of delights that can be used to create the most mouth-watering dishes.

But it wasn’t just commercially grown or developed food and drink produce – the ingredients also came from foraging, made in the kitchen at home or found in the garden.

Rae’s in Montrose

Rae’s in Montrose was the venue for the dinner where Helen Margaroli was the host for the evening and chef Wouter was the man creating the magic in the kitchen.

Six delicious courses were on the menu and a selection of delicious cocktails were served as accompaniments.

Each had something hyper-local included among the ingredients which showed what an amazing larder the county of Angus has.

The first cocktail was Angus Sling, made with Toll House gin, Castleton farm cherries (which Rae’s made a syrup from), Braes O Gowrie apple juice and garnished with apples from Helen and Wouter’s garden.

This was followed by The Haar Comes In, comprising Arbikie Haar wheat vodka, Charleton Farm golden raspberries, rosemary and cracked black pepper syrup (made at Rae’s).

The final cocktail was The Cranachan, featuring Smithie’s golden raspberry and strawberry gin, Aaran Gold, Glayva, honey and raspberries.

The Great Angus Dinner delights

The dinner opened with the amuse bouche of foraged cep and puffball mushroom croquette. Chef Wouter had foraged for the mushrooms himself.

Allotment-grown beetroot and celeriac tartar with Rae’s homemade oatcake, homegrown green apple gel and dill was a delightful first course.

The second course was lobster ravioli (using lobster caught just outside Montrose by Blue Lobster, with the ravioli made in Rae’s), crustacean bisque, samphire, Framedrum Farm bacon and spinach.

A wild shot Framedrum venison hotpot followed with wild grains (from the farmland that Helen and Wouter live on), pumpkin toffee, cabbage and Castleton blackberries.

The fourth course featured pear poached in Cairn o Mohr honey berry wine, with Strathdon blue cheese mousse sourced by Smithie’s Deli in Arbroath and toasted oats.

pear poached in honeyberry wine, with Strathdon blue cheese mousse and toasted oats.

To conclude an evening of Angus delights, the fifth course was panna cotta, with Sacred Grounds coffee and parsnip ice cream, vanilla madeleine and sacred grounds espresso syrup.

Panna cotta concluded The Great Angus Dinner.

It was an astonishing achievement to create a menu almost wholly using produce or ingredients that were grown or sourced from Angus and the team at Appetite for Angus and Rae’s certainly pulled off what could have been a tall order indeed.

Everyone who was fortunate enough to have been in attendance was fulsome in their praise and we can only hope that it isn’t a one-off.