For a recent celebration, we made our way on a snowy night to Balmoral, a Scottish restaurant in the far west suburbs of Chicago. Before learning about this delightful restaurant, I had bemoaned only being able to dine on haggis at the annual Scottish festival in Itasca, particularly since I don’t make it to the festival every year.
The ambience of the restaurant was lovely, we were seated in a neat little nook about midway through the restaurant. We were barely seated when a basket of breads was delivered, and spent a couple minutes deciding which kind to try first. Every so often, I noticed the drifting sound of bagpipes. The owner was wandering throughout the restaurant, talking to people, and every employee seemed genuinely happy to be there.
Balmoral’s menu includes two haggis dishes, one as a starter and one as an entree. I’m not particularly fond of turnips (aka “neeps”), which is a key ingredient in the entree combination of “Haggis, Neeps and Tatties,” so I ordered the Haggis Drambuie. It was a tasteful treat to start us off, with three different kinds of crispy toast perfectly proportioned for the amount of haggis and sauce that was served.
In the interest of trying less commonly available dishes, we ordered the Great Granny’s Rabbit Pie and the Perthshire’s Pleasant Peasants Pheasant. Both were delicious. In the interest of exploring the dessert menu, half of the rabbit pie came home with me.
Saving space for the desserts was well worth it. Unfortunately, the trio of mini-desserts we ordered looked so lovely, I forgot to take a photo. Well, that and we were distracted by the bagpipe rendition of “Happy Birthday”. We will definitely make it back to this fabulous restaurant.