Highlands, the Scottish gastropub we first brought word of back in July, had hoped to open for dinner tonight, but there’s been a setback in kitchen construction and instead it’ll be just cocktails tonight and (starting Tuesday) bar snacks such as cheese boards, pâtés, salmon plates, and light salads such as beet and goat cheese. Once the menu, designed by consulting chef Jeremy Hammond-Chambers and head chef Will Hickox (formerly of Public and Blue Hill), is up and running in the next weeks, it will offer cullen skink (a creamy smoked-haddock soup), scallops, halibut in brown-butter sauce with capers, and ravioli stuffed with haggis made by Andrew Hamilton of import company Scottish Wild Harvest (after the Mad Cow scare, it’s been illegal to import the traditional preparation of sheep viscera boiled in stomach, unless it’s canned, so Hamilton will make it right here in the States).
In the meantime, you’ll have to settle for cocktails such as a raspberry–Thai-basil whiskey sour, a classic blood and sand (beloved by Scotsmen), and a gin and tonic that’s made with cucumber ice cubes and served, in the Scottish way, with a tonic bottle on the side. As mentioned earlier, there will also be Scottish beers and spirits. The interior is still coming along (the barroom will be more about exposed brick and metal), but for now take a look at the dining room, outfitted with tartans from Edinburgh and artwork from Gerard Burns, a favorite of Tilda Swinton and Ewan McGregor.
Highlands, 150 W. 10th St., nr. Waverly Pl.; 212-229-2670
