For more food and drink visit www.list.co.uk/food-and-drink Food&Drink Recent Openings
The best of the new restaurant, café and bar openings in Glasgow and Edinburgh Glasgow SOFIA’S 337 Byres Road, West End, 0141 337 2737, £16 (lunch/dinner) A restyling and rebranding of the popular Café Antipasti by owner Lawrence McManus, who also owns La Vallée Blanche opposite and Nick's Italian Grill in Hyndland. The old decor has been subdued with a lick of dark paint outside, and a more rustic ambience inside with bare floors, brick walls and plenty of wood. Large windows afford an excellent vantage for people watching – always an entertaining pastime along Byres Road. The crowd-pleasing Italian fare of Antipasti is largely unchanged, albeit given a more Tuscan theme, with a range of pizzas and pastas on offer plus a grill section featuring sausages, steaks and burgers.
TAPELA 104 Bath Street, City Centre, 0141 332 6678, www.tapela.co.uk, £9 (set lunch) / £15 (dinner) Occupying the basement recently vacated by The Dining Room, Tapela is
FOOD & DRINK EVENTS
the latest venture from The Partners, whose empire includes Tattie Mac's and bistros in Bearsden and Kelvinside. Befitting this 'modern tapas' restaurant, the interior eschews the often gaudy Spanish look for a more neutral ambience enlivened by bull motifs and Jackson Pollock-style splashes of colour. The menu is an appealing mix of Spanish classics with a few global influences adding variety but not, unlike the recent trend, watering down the core authenticity. The benchmark patatas bravas are a cut above the average, deliciously crisp and well presented. THE SAINT ON BATH STREET 190 Bath Street, City Centre, 0141 352 8800, www.thesaintonbathstreet.com, £9.95 (set lunch) / £17 (dinner) Boutique hotel Saint Judes has transformed its almost windowless basement from the Asian-themed Mama San into this fashionably retro-styled cocktail bar and restaurant that aims for a prohibition-era speakeasy ambience, mirroring its stablemate The Blind Pig on Byres Road. Modern variations on British comfort food and bygone classics dominate the enticing menu, from battered pollack and chips (served in newspaper) to beans on toast and hearty dishes such as lamb shank. The food on the whole is deftly handled and skilfully presented, and there's admirable effort to source produce locally and ethically with a weekly market menu.
Edinburgh WANNABURGER 7/8 Queensferry Street, West End,
0131 220 0036, www.wannaburger.com, £7
Jon Clemence, who started up Wannaburger as a local burger operation a few years back, has remodelled his West End venue to squeeze into a gap in the market between cheap fast-food burgers and posher 'gourmet' burgers. Keen to keep quality and traceability within the equation, Wannaburger now offers a decent, if unremarkable, 'Classic' hamburger for £2.95, containing a 3oz pattie of Aberdeen Angus beef from the Scottish Borders in a robust and chewy roll made locally with potato flour sourdough. The venue now has counter service and booth seating, bound together with uncomplicated red-and-white branding. WAWA 13 West Crosscauseway, Southside, 0131 667 7816, £6.50 (lunch) / £10 (dinner) Inspired by the noodle bars of Hong Kong, where eating on the move involves staying on your feet, this compact, standing-only noodle bar targets the area’s abundance of students, who should be snared perfectly with six iPads bolted to the
counters for browse-while-you-eat fun. Amusing menus read like they’ve deliberately been fed through Google Translate a couple of times, with satay, Szechuan, black bean and garlic and ginger and spring onion among the flavour choices with various meats or prawns. There may not be much elbow room, but this must be the friendliest and most quirky takeaway in Edinburgh. BEIRUT 24 Nicolson Square, Southside, 0131 667 9919, £6.50 (set lunch) / £15 (dinner) Edinburgh’s only Lebanese restaurant, Beirut comprises a comfortable and modern – if slightly blinging – new restaurant, along with a takeaway shop called Beirut Express next door and a seated courtyard area for shisha pipes. The food offers its own twist on Middle Eastern styles, with a starter of pine nut- filled Lebanese mekanek sausage standing out, halal grilled meats a speciality among the mains and some reasonable choices for vegetarians. A mixed grill of smoky, marinated lamb and chicken served with a thin tahini and fiery chilli sauce perhaps best represents the array of shish and shawarma dishes on offer.
Independent write-ups on all the restaurants worth knowing about in Glasgow and Edinburgh are available on our online Eating & Drinking Guide at list.co.uk/food-and-drink Prices shown are for an average two-course meal for one.
GLASGOW ■ Partick Retail Outdoor Market FREE Fri 17 Dec, 10am–3pm. Mansfield Park, 5 Hyndland Street, www.citymarketsglasgow. co.uk ■ Queen’s Park Farmers’ Market FREE Sat 18 Dec, 10am–2pm. Queen’s Park, 520 Langside Road, www.citymarketsglasgow. co.uk
■ Mansfield Park Farmers’ Market FREE Thu 23 Dec, 10am–2pm. Mansfield Park, 5 Hyndland Street, www.citymarketsglasgow. co.uk
EDINBURGH ■ WoodWinters Friday
220 0441. An enhanced version of the usual tour around the Scotch Whisky Experience, with tastings of exclusive malts and some festive foods. ■ Jolly Toper Whisky Tastings Thu 23 Dec, 7.30pm. £17 (approx). The Tolbooth Tavern, 167 Canongate, 556 5348. Whisky tasting sessions at one of the best-stocked bars in town. Booking essential.
■ Whisky Distillers’ Fair Wed 29 & Thu 30 Dec, 10am–4pm. £12 (£9.50). Scotch Whisky Experience, 354 Castlehill The Royal Mile, 220 0441. Meet expert distillers and learn a little of the ancient craft which brings the dram to your glass.
Tastings Fri 17 Dec, 5pm. £5. WoodWinters, 91 Newington Road, 667 2760. Wine tasting on the last Friday of the month: this month is the culmination of a year’s sniffing and sipping as the winners of The Woodies Wines of the Year awards are annouced. Bottoms up! ■ Edinburgh Farmers’ Market FREE Sat 18 Dec & Thu 23 Dec, 9am–2pm. Castle Terrace, 652 5940. More local, quality, ethical produce than you could shake a stick at. As Christmas falls on a Saturday this year, there’s a special midweek market on the Thu
23 Dec, where you can pick up your Christmas orders and any last-minute treats and trimmings. ■ The Platinum Whisky Treat Sat & Sun 19 Dec, 5.30–7pm. £25. Scotch Whisky Experience, 354 Castlehill The Royal Mile,
16 Dec 2010 – 6 Jan 2011 THE LIST 41