Our choice is Brea, a self-styled ‘Scottish restaurant’, the name is derived from the little-known Scots word for a slope and it is indeed at the foot of a brae leading up to Stirling Castle. Located in a grotesque seventies concrete and glass carbuncle that blights this old part of the town, it is an unusual location for an award-winning restaurant, and the exterior is slightly off-putting.

Anyway, here we go. Seated in the window, Robert reminisces of his time as a fiscal in Stirling – at least he wasn’t tasked with procuring the services of a medical student to sever the heads of a couple of radical weavers, unlike his unfortunate predecessors. Baird and Hardie, ringleaders of the Scottish Insurrection of 1820, were the last persons in Britain to be decapitated for ‘treason’ earning Stirling a place in the legal history books.

Brea makes much of its ‘award-winning’ status but it has a curiously limited wine list. We opt for a Côtes du Rhône. It’s something of a last resort but this organic, sulphite free version is a cracker. It’s the best Côtes du Rhône I’ve ever tasted and is reminiscent of a decent Châteauneuf-du-Pape of which, incidentally, it is said that one third is rubbish, one third is decent and one third is superb – the problem being people can never remember which is which.

I check out our surroundings and am a trifle underwhelmed. Even ‘award-winning’ restaurants, it seems, find creating atmospheric surroundings in a shop unit challenging. The menu presents fine dining options with, perhaps, a stronger selection of starters than mains. Robert opts for the haggis and Stornoway black pudding fritters with turnip purée and a whisky sauce. I choose seared pigeon breast with a Scotch Bonnet and tomato salsa, crowdie and other bits and pieces.

The pigeon duly arrives and I don’t know whether to eat it or frame it. Wassily Kandinsky would be proud of this composition. It seems a shame to tuck in to it. A single, slightly over-cooked, pigeon breast is perched on a tiny mound of crowdie. It is a tasty morsel, but it is a mere morsel and I cast an envious eye over Robert’s trio of scrumptious fritters. At £17 for a single pigeon breast, Brea is in the running for another award – the worst value starter award.

Things can only get better, as Tony Blair used to say before invading Iraq and setting fire to the Middle East. My steak frites is less complicated – an 8oz rib-eye from the Tweed Valley apparently. It is not rare as requested but nonetheless, there is no mistaking that the beef is top quality. The chunky chips are satisfying and the beef is accompanied by a slice of beef tomato and a portobello mushroom. It is not a very imaginative choice but it reflects the choices on the main menu – which includes a lamb shank at a whopping £36. (Another possible award for Brea – the most expensive lamb shank award?).

Robert’s main course also highlights the limitations of the menu. He has opted for a steak burger. It looks good and, he says, is very good. I personally detest burgers but last month, in a Wetherspoon’s in Heathrow, I thought I might try one in the spirit of journalistic enquiry. A patty of tightly compressed grey gunge was served up on a bun and I gingerly took a bite. Luckily for me it was entirely tasteless. One bite was enough and as I put the bun back down memories come flooding back of John Selwyn Gummer feeding his daughter a burger during the mad cow disease epidemic. Is CJD still a thing I wonder?

I notice in Wetherspoons that its founder Sir Tim Martin, a trained barrister by the way, is campaigning for a reduction in VAT for hospitality businesses. A worthy cause in the absence of the Brexit bonus he predicted.

The inclusion of a steak burger in the Brea menu tells us as much about changing public tastes and the need for restaurants to duck and dive as it does about Brea. Quality is costly but in Brea, a glorified café with Country House Hotel pricing, it is just too costly.

Verdict: 6/10