There’s one thing guaranteed to make a great restaurant experience even better: a great story. Glasgow’s 111 by Modou has a terrific story. When rabid right-wingers, sodden with rhetoric, are attempting to cast all immigrants as feckless spongers, it’s one that needs to be told. Senegalese-born Modou Diagne spent much of his childhood in Spain. When he was 18, he came alone to Glasgow in search of something better. He had just £200 and at first slept rough. Eventually he found sanctuary in a church and then got into a hostel. In 2014, after a year of applications, he landed a job as a kitchen porter at 111 by Nico in Kelvinside.

The restaurant is part of the Six by Nico group, owned by chef Nico Simeone. They offer good-value tasting menus that change every six weeks, from sites across Scotland, England and now Ireland. Simeone quickly clocked Diagne’s work ethic. He progressed him through roles in the kitchen at speed, so that by 2018 he was head chef of 111 by Nico. In March 2020, Simeone summoned Diagne and told him he was changing the restaurant’s name to 111 by Modou. The place was his now. And if you want a good old cry, go to the restaurant’s website and watch the video of that moment.