5 Best Restaurants in Glasgow, Scotland
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Glasgow’s vibrant restaurant culture is constantly renewing itself. Some of Britain’s best-known chefs have opened kitchens here, including Jamie Oliver and Yotam Ottolenghi. More recently, the city has responded enthusiastically to the small-plate and sharing-platter trends, but there are still plenty of fine-dining options on the one hand, and steak houses and burger places on the other. The city continues to present the best that Scotland has to offer: grass-fed beef, free-range chicken, wild seafood, venison, duck, and goose, not to mention superb fruits and vegetables. The growing emphasis on organic food is reflected on menus that increasingly provide detailed information about the source of their ingredients. Around the city, an explosion of coffee shops offer artisanal macchiatos and mochas.
You can eat your way around the world in Glasgow. A new generation of Italian restaurants serves updated versions of classic Italian dishes. Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani foods, longtime favorites, are now more varied and sophisticated, and Thai and Japanese restaurants have become popular. Spanish-style tapas are now quite common, and the small-plate trend has extended to every kind of restaurant. Seafood restaurants have moved well beyond the fish-and-chips wrapped in newspaper that were always a Glasgow staple, as langoustines, scallops, and monkfish appear on menus with ever more unusual accompaniments. And Glasgow has an especially good reputation for its vegan and vegetarian restaurants.
Smoking isn't allowed in any enclosed space in Scotland, but more restaurants have placed tables outside under awnings during the warmer summer months, some of which permit smoking.
Stravaigin
For many years Stravaigin has maintained the highest quality of cooking, creating adventurous dishes that often combine Asian and local flavors and unusual marriages of ingredients. You can try the piri piri quail (the seasoning is used in Africa) or the restaurant's famous haggis and neeps (turnips), symbolizing its commitment to local produce. A wide variety of wines is available, including some uncommon ones. The café-bar is abuzz with conversation; the downstairs restaurant serves the same menu, but the environment is quieter.
Anchor Line
Occupying the former headquarters of the Anchor Line, whose ships sailed from Scotland to America, this bar and restaurant near George Square has been impressively refurbished to create the sense of fine dining aboard a luxury ocean liner. The menu reflects the voyage, too, including Scottish seafood and lamb, and a full range of steaks and their sauces to represent America. Wine and drinks follow the same transatlantic theme. Dine in the bar for more casual fare, such as salads and steak sandwiches. The slightly less expensive but equally elegant basement restaurant, the Atlantic, is French-themed. If you are visiting during the holiday season, the Christmas decorations here are a thing of beauty: the building's pillared facade is wrapped in lights, bows, and greenery, wtih the theme continuing into the luxurious interior.
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Six by Nico
In a street of adventurous eateries, Six by Nico adds a new dimension of fun and wit. The concept at this intimate, modern restaurant with black tile, wood floors and tables, and black chairs is a six-course tasting menu linked to a theme that changes every six weeks, whether it's fish-and-chips or Route 66, with dishes that deconstruct and reconstruct the familiar. Five dishes are savory, one is sweet, and the staff lovingly introduces each course. Reservations are essential. The cost of the tasting menu is £25; there is a wine-pairing list for the same price.
Ubiquitous Chip
Occupying a converted stable behind the Hillhead subway station on busy Ashton Lane, this restaurant is a Glasgow institution, with an untarnished reputation for creative Scottish cooking. Its street-level restaurant is a beautiful courtyard protected by a glass roof, and the more informal brasserie upstairs also serves less expensive dishes like haggis with neeps and tatties or a plate of mussels. The upstairs bar is invariably full and noisy with conversation. The creative menu might includes cod with hazelnuts and truffles, or Galloway roe deer, and there is an excellent lunch and pretheater menu for two or three courses.