Cookie Catering Launches!  Cookie has joined forces with John Shields the award winning chef to give Cookie Catering real flavour, passion and the professional ability to deliver.

John has been catering for many years for the private jets that go through Glasgow Airport. Whether it be for Bruce Springsteen, Prince or a Captain of industry his culinary output needs to be on time and of the highest quality. This kind of work keeps him on his toes and makes him flexible. Qualities we were looking for in developing a new Catering business. We share a common interest for great Scottish products and a desire to make food tell its story.

Cookie now has the dimension to cater for large events with a dedicated team under John’s command. The culinary quality and interest that Cookie has brought to the Southside is now on the road and ready to be brought to you.

The strength of our cuisine is based on the quality ingredients that we use, whether these be from Scotland or Italy. Unpretentious classic British food meets Europe with a twist.

We are constrained by space at Cookie and our link up with John and his team gives us a whole new dimension. We are working with an already proven Head Chef and Caterer which means we enter this business with eyes wide open and a strong knowledge base.

John began his career as a chef at The Buttery. During his time at the Townhouse Hotel he gained two AA rosette awards for its outstanding cuisine. He then moved East to further develop his culinary expertise at the Michelin Bib accredited Pompadour restaurant in the Caledonian Hotel, Edinburgh. John was nominated in 2009 for New Restaurant Chef of the Year.

Cookie Catering tel 0141 423 1411

Thanks to everyone who has helped make Cookie become….”More than just a café”

The Hot 100 is a list of Scots who’ve made a sizeable creative splash in 2010. It includes musicians, artists, writers, actors, fashion designers, technological innovators, shop owners, festival directors, record label heads and one mad cyclist.

Cookie..”On Glasgow’s Southside has been shaking up the local eating scene all year with good food, unusual events, a few provocative stunts and huge amounts of energy”

It is a learning curve but we are going to keep going and will revisit some of our ideas from 2010 to make them even better.

Watch out for the all new Cooking Club on Sunday evenings
Live music
Promotion of great Scottish produce in season
Cooking Classes for the next generation
Grow for us and barter with us
Chef Wars

We are always looking for ideas and people who would like to help make Cookie a great resource for its community.

if you are interested in helping email us on info@cookiescotland.com

It has been about a year since we came up with the concept for Cookie. We were on a family holiday to see our friends at cooking club in Vienna. www.kochklub.at We had magical weekend with the Austrian sculptor Walter Pichler and drove on to Italy. We brain stormed ideas in the car, the name…why Cookie? The Southside, the premises, an empty street, a Thomson building in distress.

The ideas behind Cookie were and are personal and professional interests of ours. Its approach to food comes from our family experiences and  our European connections. Our professional interest in community building, public health, design, art, ecology are all part of our other jobs.

We recognised Nithsdale Road had been a little forgotten and neglected as a commercial road but it had this fantastic double sided property. It is a road of great potential and we hope that in opening a commercial activity like ours we could become a impetuous for regeneration. The back backbone of our idea is a simple one, to create a restaurant with interest which we would be happy to eat in with our kids and our friends.

Cookie has come a long way since then. With lots of ideas under the bridge, some things worked, some things didn’t and some things need time to mature, developing understanding and trust.

Some of our ideas are just getting going, like educational programs, the film club, and the use of bartering for locally produced fruit & veg.

We have been working hard to get things right at Cookie, bring in professional front of house staff to ensure service at Cookie improves. We have been listening to our customers and been taking action to make sure things are tweaked and improved.

Our initial Cooking Club idea needed time to mature, and it is currently hiding under the surface in our popular Chef Wars events. This gives amateur cooks a chance to cook for fellow members of the public, trying out family recipes and their best dishes.

We hope that in time on Monday and Sunday nights the restaurant can be used in a more collective way.For the second half of this year we have an interesting Calandar of events and ideas:

Collective Jam making on the 15th and 22nd of August with NVA

Harvest Glasgow on the 28th at Tramway

Pasta Making in Clarkston library in September and Apple day in Rouken Glen park on Saturday the 11th of September

We hope to open a Farmers market stall in East  Renfrewshire

Stand up comedy will make an appearance in the restaurant after the Edinburgh Festival

On the 21st of September we have a wine education evening with Dr Pamela Clayton and invitation to form the Cookie wine Club.

As October roles in we hope to have the Film club up and going with a junior after schools version linked to Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousin’s 8 1/2 foundation

As always we can be booked for your party or event and our outside catering is growing to popular demand.

On Sundays we hope to introduce a regular Hog Roast when it doesn’t rain and free range roast chickens too available take away or have Sunday lunch with us.

Can you lend a hand to make Cookie a great venue for a film club?

Cookie could become an excellent venue on the Southside for a more relaxed screening format. A glass of wine, a pint of beer, some excellent Cookie food, sit back and enjoy.

When autumn comes around we would like to be organised with a stimulating film choice. Whether  it be film classics or work by local film makers. It would be good to develop a program which has something of interest for all.

To do this we would like to hear from you, get your suggestions and if there is anyone out there who would like to help us in organising the film club please get in contact.

Eggs, Lamb and Rabbit are symbolic of fertility, sacrifice and new beginnings. We can’t think of a Christian festival with more symbolism associated with food traditions than Easter, but then again, perhaps someone could? Let me know about the meaning of Turkey at Christmas.

We will be serving a Sunday and Monday lunch using these ingredients: Rabbit terrine; Roast leg of Lamb; and eggs…?   To celebrate this time of new beginnings.

Easter was Pascha from the Hebrew word for Passover, in Italy we use the word Pasqua. It was replaced by Easter, a word which is believed to have evolved from Eostre, the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility and springtime. …read more…