The sun is bouncing off the pavements on Byres Road, and outside of the University Café an oversized Mr Whippy-esque statuette is attracting the student crowd like wasps.
A kitsch callback to a simpler time, it’s leading them indoors where stainless steel buckets filled with sweet ice cream lie in subzero temperatures beneath the counter.
Kudos to them for finding the perfect antidote to the balmy Spring weather, but I’m here in search of a dish that will stretch the limits of my appetite far further than a scoop of stracciatella.
“I’m pretty sure god is against this,” late chef and beloved TV personality Anthony Bourdain said of his dinner eaten in this spot for a Scotland-focused episode of Parts Unknown, which first aired on May 10, 10 years ago.
(Image: Newsquest)
He delivered this one of signature, razor-sharp one-liners while reaching for another chip, swimming in curry sauce and topped with a blanket of melted cheese so thick that you could almost feel the weight of it through your screen as it cooled and congealed.
Of course, this was just a side order to his main event of deep-fried haggis (served here in ‘tube form’) and a portion of crispy battered haddock.
A decade later, looking for a way to acknowledge the milestone, I’ve decided to risk a spike in cholesterol levels for the chance to experience the same meal which the Kitchen Confidential star ultimately hailed as ‘one of life’s great pleasures’.
Outside of a star feature in Bourdain’s celebrated CNN travel series, The University Café is an institution in its own right. Run by the Verrechia family, there’s over 100 years’ worth of history packed into these walls, and the interiors remain delightfully unchanged as one of the West End’s busiest streets morphs and evolves around them.
Pictured: Chips, cheese and curry sauce is just the beginning (Image: Newsquest)
I sit towards the back of the space, where I’m caught off guard by leather seats which fold down just the same as those you’d find at a theatre. It’s snug, but the perfect spot to survey the comings and goings of the café.
Aside from swarms of students buzzing in and out with queries about today’s ice cream flavours, there’s only one other solo diner occupying the sit-in dining area.
I eye his can of Irn Bru from across the room and wonder if he too has chosen the Bourdain Special, a repeat of the chef’s Frankenstein order which has become a permanent fixture on their menu due to its popularity with fans.
With my back to the wall shared with the kitchen, I can hear, but not see, my own single serving of the special being prepared.
Crackle. Pop. Bubble. It all comes to a crescendo fuelled by blistering hot oil as each component of this gut-busting feast is plunged into a fryer.
Having already dropped off the fizzy drink included in the Bourdain Special, the waitress almost catches me in the act of self-filming a video for our social channels when returning with the rest of the order.
Pictured: The Bourdain Special at the University Cafe (Image: Newsquest)
Thankfully, there’s little time to agonise over whether the main man himself would have dubbed this blatant quest for content creation lame, because there’s food here to be eaten. And a lot of it.
The curry sauce goes first, poured at a height from a small white milk jug with a chip in its lip and falling in an uneven, gloopy stream.
Foodie Room 101 though it may be to some, I find curry sauce to be the ultimate companion to any meal that feels just a little bit ‘dirty’. There’s a perverse pleasure in ordering this yellow-tinged condiment from a Chinese takeaway or chippy, knowing that that these sweet and spicy flavors don’t quite belong but doing it anyway.
I know this slathering of the good stuff will turn the batter of that freshly fried haddock into an instant mush, but I don’t care, and continue to pour until the last drop.
Of all of the items that complete Bourdain’s god-offending order, I’ll find that the haggis is the best. Whichever brand they use is of a high enough quality that there’s decent texture even after being exposed to intense heat, and the richness of meat described in the TV segment as ‘sinister sheep parts’ shines through any greasiness.
Take this from someone who compared six variations of our national dish, including one packed into a can, in honor of Burn’s Night earlier this year.
(Read more: I tried haggis from a can so you don’t have to)
@heraldeats This cafe is a must visit for fans of Anthony Bourdain 📺 A decade since the Parts Unknown episode exploring Scotland first aired, I followed in the late chef’s footsteps by ordering a feast of fried food. Look out for more on The Herald homepage soon 👀 #scottishtiktok #glasgow #foodtok #anthonybourdain #glasgowfood #glasgowfoodie #scotland ♬ Smooth Sailing – Queens of the Stone Age
Is the haddock as good as the stuff they serve at say, the Fish Works in Largs, or the Anstruther Fish Bar? The short answer is no. But I’m not here for any kind of upmarket experience. It’s salty, oily and the white flesh flakes just as well when released from a cocoon of heavy batter.
A colleague later describes the meal as looking appetizing in an ‘after four pints’ kind of way, and I understand his point. This is the type of food that can only be fully enjoyed when any notion of calorie counting or refined dining left at the door. Something that we should all surrender to now and again, whether sober or far from it.
When I arise from the table, leaving the red leather seat to snap back it its original position behind me, I overhear a couple who have plonked themselves down with an impressive collection of backpacks asking the waiter about the Bourdain Special in unfamiliar accents, a reminder that his fans can be found all across the wide world he once traveled.
“It’s funny, a lot of them seem to have sold today,” I’m told when approaching the counter to pay my bill.
Before I have the chance to decide if I should reveal my journalistic motives for visiting, the long-serving member of the team offers up an anecdote from Bourdain’s visit without any prompt.
“I had the place spotless,” she says, “and then a child sat at the booth next to where they were filming and smeared their hands right across the glass.”
I’m here to write about that very day, I tell her, in the hopes that she’ll share more of what it was like to host a man whose work I found myself engrossed in as soon as I started to develop an interest in food and world cuisine.
In all of the fun of the afternoon, her response is a sincere yet sobering reminder of the issues which plagued the chef when the cameras stopped rolling and would later develop into something much darker.
He wasn’t rude by any means, she stresses, but when she approached him to make conversation, the chef seemed somewhat disconnected and closed off.
‘You can tell with some people, when something’s not quite right.’
(Image: Newsquest)
Rewatching the Parts Unknown episode in the years following Bourdain’s death in 2018 has a bittersweet effect.
There’s a sense of pride in the moments when he highlights the city’s true spirit rather than leaning into the stereotype of a gritty place plagued by violence and crime.
But we now return to those soundbites, knowing that he will never walk its streets again.
“A happy place from my past where once I frolicked young and carefree in the field of friolated arts.
“The University Cafe, where I learned at the foot of the masters the doa of hot fat and crispy batter.”
10 years since we first tagged along with him for the ride, his name permanently printed on the menus at a place he returned to time and time again serves as a reminder of the seismic impact this troubled, yet brilliant chef and reluctant celebrity figure has left behind.
