Restaurant review: The Lui Restaurant, Invercauld Road, Ballater By RICHARD BATH Published on Tuesday 15 May 2012 00:00 HAVING spent a chilly day on the river without catching a glimpse of a fish, we decided to start with a couple of dishes in honour of absent friends. IT'S the beginning of May in Ballater and it's snowing. Just to add some variety, every couple of hours it starts hailing too. The combination leaves a thin coating on the woods and golf course overlooked by the Glen Lui Hotel's dining room, while the distant hills around Lochnagar are completely white. Not that it's bothering the two frisky red squirrels skittering around in the trees, manically chasing each other up and down one tree and throwing themselves across a seemingly huge divide in their pursuit of each other. The diners at all ten of the window tables sit rapt, watching the pair's aerial frolicking. Looking at the guest book when we check out, it's clear this is pretty much a daily cameo from two seasoned performers. Yet much as this is entrancing (do the staff feed them with nuts, we wonder?), it's not the main reason people come and stay at this functional but popular little 120-year-old hotel on Royal Deeside. There are golfers, families visiting Balmoral and walkers making the most of the Cairngorms national park, but in May, and then again in autumn, it's all about the fishermen. The River Dee, one of the country's better salmon rivers, is a ten-minute walk away and you can occasionally see little parties of men in waders wandering across the golf course on their way to its banks. Back in the mists of time, when salmon were so plentiful industrial workers insisted employers could not feed them the fish more than twice a week, hotels like Glen Lui would cook the many fish caught by its guests. But in these days of catch and return (or, more likely, no catch), the menu has to make do without such bespoke options. Instead, as befits a hotel playing host to a large number of fishing guests (we just missed a party of a dozen Norwegians, who fished hard by day and spent the evenings ravaging Scotland's reserves of malt whisky), the lengthy menu is now contemporary Scottish cuisine with the happy twist that most of the ingredients are sourced locally. Bizarrely, the impressive provenance of the ingredients wasn't trumpeted on the menu. Yet every time I asked where something came from, the answer was "nearby": the venison was from Glen Muick, the haggis from a butcher in the town, the lamb from a farm around the corner. Having spent a chilly day on the river without even catching a glimpse of a fish, we decided to start off with a couple of dishes in honour of absent friends, and plumped for fishy starters. Will opted for the seared king scallops and Stornoway black pudding with a celeriac purée, while I went for a seafood tower with lemongrass and ginger. Mine was definitely the better option, with a tightly packed, chilled stack of prawns being studded with sizeable chunks of salmon, monkfish and scallops. The whole lot was drizzled with a dressing of lemongrass, ginger and chilli in which the ginger and chilli were so subtle as to be almost undetectable, but in which the lemongrass added a fresh zestiness that complemented an already good starter. This may not have warmed my chilled bones, but it was otherwise an excellent beginning. Will's pair of pee-wee scallops, however, proved a little disappointing. Although the celeriac purée gifted some moisture to the whole ensemble, and the butter-cooked scallops were perfectly done, the cloyingly dense black pudding and diminutive size of the scallops detracted mightily. So, two starters - one hit, one miss. For our main courses, we both went for the local meat. Will chose the Aberdeen Angus fillet steak with red wine and shallot sauce, while I opted for the Glen Muick venison loin with caramelised red cabbage and a red wine and vanilla jus. There were certainly no complaints from the other side of the table, where Will's medium-rare steak was cooked perfectly and was packed with flavour, but my dish was a far more mixed bag. The half-dozen small slices of venison were succulent enough, if insufficiently gamey and overcooked for my personal taste (I've never understood why it's compulsory to ask for guidance on diners" preferences when they order beef but to completely ignore them when it comes to venison), but the dish was severely compromised by the most bizarre caramelised red cabbage I've ever seen or tasted. It was almost blue and had a strange metallic taste. After two mouthfuls, I immediately wondered whether I would be left with a turquoise tongue. However, both our puddings were excellent. Will's crème brûlée with strawberries and home-made shortbread was a good effort, but my shortcrust pastry tart with frangipane and apples, served with an apricot sauce and double cream, was not only beautifully presented but of a quality that would have even the most patriotic French patissier raising an eyebrow in approval. Those two puddings rounded off a meal that had its ups and its downs, but which was pretty much in keeping with the hotel's three-star status (anglers who want a seven-course tasting menu and a wine list bulging with premier cru options generally check in at the town's Darroch Learg hotel). Yet there are some nice touches that make dining pleasurable at the Lui Restaurant, which is part of a homely, family-run establishment in which two generations of the Bell family ensure the service is always personal and friendly. Not least of these are a good wine list and, of course, the wonderful performing squirrels.