Home Food Restaurant Reviews Recipes Drink Distilleries Whisky Gin Craft Beer Locations Scran Podcast Chef Gary Townsend’s first solo restaurant, Elements, will open in mid-July. Rosalind Erskine visited for a first look to find out more about the concept and why fiction may be closer to real life. There’s a buzz about Elements, the first restaurant from chef Gary Townsend, both literally from a workman’s drill but also from the wider Glasgow and Bearsden community.
“We’ve had a stream of about 50 or 60 people stopping to check out the menu and have a look inside. The local support has been amazing,” said Townsend, who left his post as head chef of One Devonshire Gardens in early 2024. The move to open his own place has been ‘a dream’ and one he’d been looking into for about two years but which stalled due to Covid.
While there is a steady stream of workmen, drilling and hammering when I visit on the Tuesday morning ahead of opening on 11 July, the overall feeling is calm anticipation. Despite this, Townsend said, laughing: “It’s like The Bear ” - a reference to opening a fine dining restaurant in the same time period as Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto in the hit Disney+ TV show. “It's exactly how it feels at the minute, yeah, a lot of stress, a lot of worries, a lot of excitement, and a lot of nerves.
” Inside, Elements is a study in stylish deep blue, with velvet seats, simple lighting and small posies of dried flowers on the tables. It’s classic but no.
