'Whatever anyone says, we all do a bit of plagiarism," says Colin Clydesdale. "When Stravaigin opened, we took a lot of our recipes from an Australian Women's Weekly cookbook - I guess we were doing a kind of fusion, though we didn't know it at the time."

Clydesdale named his restaurant Stravaigin after the Scots for "to meander". The name was (and remains) so appropriate that it's tempting to describe his "think global, eat local" ethos not with the abused and discredited label of fusion food, but as stravaigin food. For a start, Clydesdale, like the name, is rooted in Scotland - his dad, Ronnie, ran the famous Ubiquitous Chip off Byres Road in Glasgow. The Chip's mission was to rescue Scotland's endangered cuisine, introducing such novel concepts (for the 70s) as stating provenance on menus and championing local game, seafood and traditional dishes. "I was brought up eating fresh, interesting food," says Clydesdale. "When dad was building the Chip, we were taken to every up-and-coming restaurant in a 300-mile radius."

Which is where the meandering comes in. "When I was 16, I asked Dad for a job washing dishes," he continues. "I'd work and save some money, then bugger off travelling - mostly to Asia." Clydesdale didn't travel specifically to learn about food, but he was always eating, grazing and absorbing ideas. Global influences are all over Stravaigin's menus - slow-braised Argyllshire rabbit with star anise gravy, say, or a local version of Chile's surf'n'turf stew, curanto, using Scottish mussels, langoustine, lamb and game. But it's not about being a global restaurant - dishes get on to, and stay on, the menu because they inspire and excite the chefs. "Are we doing Scottish food? Absolutely. I'm passionate about Scotland, but I have a problem with nationalism. I'd like to think we're one of the most European-style places in Glasgow. We're doing Scottish in a very internationalist sense."

Not everyone tunes into Stravaigin straight away, but once you like it, you like it a lot. It's a place that attracts admiration and affection in equal measure - not something easily achieved in the restaurant world. "Stravaigin doesn't work unless the staff buy into it," says Clydesdale. "Half our chefs are guys who walk in off the street because they've read our menu and engage with what we're doing. Our chefs are always choosing us, not the other way round.

"The problem is that some guys just don't have a love for food. You have to care. In fact, you've got to be a bit of a jessie to cook. Too many cooks are technicians. The suits love that sort of stuff - we've had them here, when we started winning awards, with their Mercedes lined up outside. They're miffed because we've nowhere to hang their mink coats and they complain that we don't serve mints with coffee."

Stravaigin is very comfortable with its own quirkiness. It has just emerged refreshed, but not greatly mucked around with, after a refurbishment to mark its 10th birthday. The fact that nothing more is required is testament to Clydesdale's confidently broad-minded vision and continued passion for well-sourced, enjoyable food. Fusion food may fade, but Clydesdale stravaigins on.

All recipes serve six.

Grilled aubergine and feta katafi balls with chickpea and spinach salad

For the katafi balls

1 aubergine, finely sliced

Salt and pepper

4 plum tomatoes, halved

1 red pepper, halved and deseeded

1 red onion, thinly sliced

300g feta, crumbled

Olive oil

1 small bunch fresh basil, finely chopped

300g katafi dough (a pastry similar to filo that comes in thin, noodle-like layers - it can be bought ready-made from specialist Middle Eastern shops and Greek grocers. If you can't find it, use filo instead, finely shredded)

For the chickpea salad

1 tbsp olive oil

1 pinch smoked paprika

1 pinch ground cumin

1 pinch ground coriander

200g cooked chickpeas

1 bunch large leaf spinach

4 tbsp natural yogurt

Salt and pepper

For the pomegranate dressing

250ml olive oil

50ml pomegranate concentrate

50ml balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Sprinkle the aubergine with salt and set aside. Put the tomato and pepper halves on a roasting tray, season and roast until lightly charred. Allow to cool. Rinse the aubergines to get rid of the salt and cook on a griddle pan until lightly charred. Allow to cool.

Sauté the onion in a little olive oil until soft, then set aside to cool. Chop the aubergine, tomatoes and pepper, and roughly mix with the feta, onion and basil. Wet your hands and form the mixture into six equal-sized balls. Put in the fridge and leave to firm up.

Carefully unravel the katafi and wrap strands of the noodle around each ball. Return to the fridge until required.

To cook, place the balls on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil, and bake for 10-12 minutes until golden, crispy and heated through.

For the chickpea salad, heat the oil in a pan, and add the chickpeas and spices. When thoroughly heated through, add the spinach and allow to wilt. Remove from the heat, stir in the yogurt and season. Whisk together the dressing ingredients and set aside.

Spoon some of the chickpea salad into the centre of the plate and place a katafi ball on top. Dribble the dressing over and around the ball, and serve.

Stravaigin's award-winning haggis

100g suet

2 Spanish onions, one roughly chopped, the other finely

1kg very fresh mixed lamb's heart, lungs and liver, roughly chopped

½ tsp ground allspice (or ground pimento berries)

1 tsp dried thyme

2 tsp cracked black pepper

1 tsp salt

500ml lamb stock

400g toasted pinhead oatmeal

Heat the suet in a large saucepan. Add the roughly chopped onion and the offal, and brown all over. Pass the contents of the pan through a fine mincer and set aside.

In the same pan, fry the finely chopped onion for a minute, then add the minced offal mixture. Stirring all the time, add the allspice, thyme and seasoning, followed by 400ml of lamb stock. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for three hours, stirring occasionally. Top up with the remaining stock if necessary (the mixture should be very moist at this stage).

After three hours, add the oatmeal and cook for a further 10 minutes (or until the oatmeal is al dente), stirring continuously. The mix should have thickened considerably, but add any remaining lamb stock if it's too dry. Remove from the heat and serve with mashed neeps, tatties and a final sprinkling of oatmeal for garnish - and a wee dram of whisky.

Perthshire pigeon, parsnip mash, wild mushrooms, green beans and kirsch cherry gravy

400g parsnips

Melted butter, for frying

Salt and pepper

½ tsp nutmeg

100ml cream

16 slices streaky bacon

4 pigeon crowns, cleaned (ie, both breasts, on the bone and in one piece)

100g green beans

1 shot kirsch

150ml reduced red-wine sauce

50g cherries

Butter

200g wild mushrooms

2 garlic cloves, crushed

Peel and chop the parsnips and place in a saucepan with some melted butter. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, and soften over a low heat for 10 minutes. Once soft, add the cream and cook gently for a further 20 minutes, during which time it should reduce by half. Remove from the heat and mash. Season to taste and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Wrap four slices of bacon around each crown, then season generously. Heat a large pan and place the pigeons breast-side up in the pan. Brown on one side, then place in the oven for 15 minutes.

While the birds are roasting, blanch the beans in boiling water. Heat a saucepan, add the kirsch and flame it, to burn off the alcohol. Add the reduced red wine and cherries, and heat through gently. Heat a frying pan and sauté the mushrooms with some minced garlic and butter, until soft. Add the beans and heat through.

Remove the pigeons from the oven and set aside in a warm place to rest.

To serve, place some parsnip purée in the centre of a large dinner plate. Place a pigeon crown on top, and spoon over the mushroom and bean mixture. Spoon cherry gravy over and around the bird, taking care to place the cherries evenly around the plate.

Rhubarb and lemon curd trifle

For the cake

150g self-raising flour

150g sugar

30g poppy seeds

6g lemon zest

45ml milk

3 eggs

230g melted butter

For the lemon curd

2 egg yolks

100g caster sugar

100g butter

1 lemon

To serve

6 Martini glasses, chilled

A little stewed rhubarb

300ml vanilla cream - that is, double cream and the seeds from a vanilla pod, softly whipped

Candied fruit zest, chopped

First make the cake. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Combine the flour, sugar, poppy seeds and lemon zest. In another bowl, mix together the milk and eggs. Add the butter and half the milk mixture to the dry ingredients, allow to moisten gradually, then add the rest of the milk to form a batter. Pour into a greased cake tin and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.

Now make the curd. Cream the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and whisk. Add the butter, zest and juice of the lemon. Stir over a very low heat and beat until it thickens. Set aside and chill.

To serve, crumble some cake into the bottom of each glass, spoon some stewed rhubarb on top of the cake, and spoon some curd on top of that. Repeat the layering process until the glass is full. Smother vanilla cream on the last layer and sprinkle with candied zest.

· Stravaigin, 28 Gibson Street, Glasgow, 0141-334 2665 (stravaigin.com).