Restaurant review, The Road Hole Restaurant.

The hushed reverence in fine-dining establishments is a given: if there is a tasting menu and a flight of wines to be had, solemn attention to the plates and glasses is expected.

What, then, to make of the Road Hole restaurant? The classically beautiful room is thrumming with noise as we enter, our loins girded for six courses of Scottish deliciousness. No one is paying much attention to anything but the scene outside the window.

Let me explain. The Road Hole restaurant is within the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews, a place of pilgrimage for golfers from around the world and a place of unrivalled plainness and lack of appeal for anyone else; they keep driving, because just down the road is the town of St Andrews – pretty, with its dark architecture and famous Chariots of Fire beach.

It's a shame, because what chef Ross Marshall is doing at the restaurant is very appealing. The golfers, who have changed from jersey rollnecks and plaid slacks into different jersey rollnecks and plain slacks for dinner, are forking down food while watching the last few rounds come in to the 18th hole; and their main attention within the room is in ordering a very fine wine with which to impress their client/colleagues/golf buddies.

I feel a little de trop in heels and a dress. But sommelier Alan Brady, perhaps glad of a change from the totally tee-crowd, makes me feel very much at home. With the first course of scallops with artichoke and apple salad and a cider foam, a Tasmanian 2006 Reisling. The scallop is a hearty beast from the west coast; I welcome the day when someone has the courage to serve such exemplary produce completely unadorned. The foam is, well, foamy.

A chicken-and-black-pudding terrine sounds terrifyingly close to a silly-billy combination, and it comes looking like a crazy-paving tile, but the chicken is succulent and the earthy pudding is a good foil for it. Mercifully none of the dishes comes on slate, or any other novelty arrangement. The large, square white plates showcase the Scottish ingredients beautifully.

Next up, salmon from Loch Duart with baby beets, fennel and cucumber jelly. Another foam, another slick across the plate. But the cucumber jelly is outstanding, and the beet purée as intense in flavour as it is in colour. Via a New Zealand Chardonnay, I'm now sipping a beautiful rosé Sancerre from the Loire and the meaningless (to me) banter about bunkers, birdies and Rory has receded into the background.

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