Chez Mal at Malmaison Dundee Review

With fifteen restaurants within Malmaison hotels currently holding an AA rosette, there's no doubt this popular boutique hotel chain is looked on with great favour by the AA guide. But are those rosettes really always justified? Whilst on holiday in Scotland, I thought it was as good a time as any to find out, so I duly rocked up for lunch at Chez Mal at Malmaison Dundee on a brisk August Tuesday, with my wife, our two children and my wife's parents.

There's no dedicated parking at the hotel but several pay and display car parks in the vicinity; we parked at the Discovery car park (having visited the rather excellent Discovery museum in the morning) which is a sub five minute walk away.

The restaurant is actually located on the first floor of the hotel (it took us a trip to reception to realise this); on arrival at the unmanned restaurant welcome desk on the first floor landing area, we waited quite a few minutes for someone to come and say hello (which wasn't ideal), but in the end a waitress did spot us and we were shown through to the dining room and our table. This is a hotel chain that likes to make their restaurants look smart, and the room was very comfortable with plenty of natural light. Unsurprisingly for a Tuesday lunch it wasn't busy, but there were a couple of other tables in.

On offer at lunch is a sizeable three course carte menu, and a comprehensive three course children's menu also. Drinks wise there is plenty of choice too, with a large range of cocktails (including many non-alcoholic options) and a good choice of wine also. My father-in-law and I enjoyed a bottle of Australian The Stump Jump Chardonnay with our meal (albeit priced at a greater than 3x markup), whilst the rest of the family just stuck with soft drinks.

We passed on starters on this occasion and went straight to the mains; I opted for the poached Loch Duart salmon, served with new potatoes, a punchy hollandaise sauce and a watercress shallot salad. I enjoyed this main course; the fish cookery was good, the new potatoes were surprisingly delicious and overall as a dish it ate well. My father in-in-law had the same and enjoyed the dish too.

My wife and mother-in-law went for the grilled pork chop, served with grilled cabbage, caramelised apple, prunes and a cider mustard sauce. This was another solid and tasty dish that was executed well. My daughter had the breaded chicken from the children's menu which was fine, whilst my son was perfectly happy with just a portion of chips. I did also order a side of truffle and parmesan fries for the table (our waitress seemed keen we order a side or two when taking our order) which were tasty enough.

There was of course no chance of us leaving without dessert; I had a very substantial creme brulee which was nothing spectacular, but perfectly well delivered. My wife and mother-in-law opted for the strawberry cheesecake with fresh strawberry compote, sorbet and a chunk of honeycomb. This was a tasty dish also, certainly not the best cheesecake we've ever eaten, but far from the worst.

For the rest of the table, my father-in-law enjoyed a perfectly palatable sticky toffee pudding, my daughter a mixed berry bowl and sorbet from the children's menu, whilst my son finished with two scoops of strawberry ice cream. It's fair to say everyone enjoyed their desserts.

And so, after collecting the bill (complete with 12.5% service charge), an enjoyable lunch came to an end. Overall I was impressed with the standard of food here which was actually better than I'd been expecting. Of course, there's nothing revolutionary here, but everything we were served was cooked well and tasted good which is often harder than it sounds to achieve, particularly in a quiet hotel restaurant on a Tuesday lunch.

Service too was fine (apart from that initial wait to be noticed before we entered the restaurant); we were looked after well enough and although I wouldn't describe the service as particularly attentive, the staff were all perfectly pleasant.

As you'd probably expect for this kind of hotel chain restaurant, it is fairly expensive for what it is, but I for one would have no objection to eating here again in future.