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
TEMPER CHOCOLATES 48 Woodside Terrace Lane, Charing Cross, www.temperchocolates .co.uk, 07886 215209 Tucked down a cobbled street near Charing Cross in a former photography studio is this new chocolate shop and tiny tasting café run by self-taught chocolatier Kirsty Shepheard. Named after the process that gives chocolate its ‘snap’, the shop stocks hand-made truffles, slabs, chocolates and brownies, (all organic and made on the premises) plus tailor-made gift packs. Try an Uber Bar for £1.50: dark, organic chocolate packed with dried fruit, nuts and seeds, while the decadent hot chocolate, made with organic hot milk and 70 per cent dark chocolate, is perfect on a cold winter day.
OPERETTA Highlander House, 58 Waterloo Street, 0141 204 3444, www.operettaglasgow.co.uk, £7.25 (set lunch)/£14 (dinner) The Franchetti family's latest venture in the financial district is a step into the restaurant scene after years running the nearby Opera café. Serving hordes of office workers is a big focus, hence the fridges and catering apparatus dominating the front and side. High tables and booths look out onto busy streets, giving Operetta the feel of a Manhattan diner, while there's a cosier restaurant area at the rear. The Italian fare is a familiar mix of antipasti, pasta, pizzas and mains, with regularly changing specials and more sophisticated dishes such as sea bass, wood pigeon and duck. CURLERS REST 256–260 Byres Road, 0141 341 0737, www.thecurlersrest.co.uk, £14 (lunch/dinner) A major refurbishment and a minor name change have transformed this venerable Byres Road establishment from mainstream studenty pub into a much more welcoming bar. It is deceptively spacious inside combining dimly lit nooks with a more modern area upstairs with an open kitchen and long communal tables. An appealing menu mixes British pub classics with homely favourites including mushrooms on toast with stilton, pork belly, shin of beef, and lamb shoulder. Meat-lovers can also drop by on Sundays when a selection of roasts are carved up.
Edinburgh RED BOX NOODLE BAR 51–53 West Nicolson Street, 0131 662 0828, www.red-boxnoodlebar. co.uk, £7.50 (set lunch/dinner) Situated in what was once Edinburgh institution Susie’s Diner, Red Box offers build-your-own noodle dishes for those who want to grab-and-go or hit-and-sit. Order a mix-and-match selection of starters, noodles, meats, vegetables, sauces and spices, served in cardboard cartons then delivered before you even get settled. With booming music and a solid stream of hungry students and young Asians passing through, eating here isn’t a leisurely affair, but it is filling and affordable. LOVE YOU LONG THAI 20a Leopold Place, London Road, 0131 652 3987, www.thai- edinburgh.co.uk, £18 (dinner) The long-awaited restaurant from the team behind Thai takeaway Spicebox, the food at this place isn't nearly as corny as the name. The menu combines Thai classics such as fish cakes, Tom Yum soup and Pad Thai noodles with distinctive and quite intricate dishes. Throughout the flavours are clear and
well-crafted: enticing if you're a newcomer and reassuring if you're an old hand. The scruffy subterranean setting and the patched-together look give it a just-moved-in feel, but this is engaging Thai food that feeds the eyes as well as the palate. HONG FU 3-7 Waterloo Place, 0131 556 7597, www.hongfubar.com, £11.50 (lunch/dinner) Working the canteen aesthetic to within an inch of its life, Hong Fu Noodle proudly wears its ‘no more fusion’ heart on its sleeve. Beijing roast duck is exceptional – fragrant, slightly sweet yet savoury, a huge bowl of braised beef noodles is so simple yet so tasty, while the home-made dumplings and noodles help create a meal that's a world away from the more ersatz Chinese food available in Edinburgh. While the unintentionally hilarious menu translations may confuse rather than clarify, the friendly servers happily explain and recommend. If you want to fill your boots with simple, hearty and real soul- food then this is a pit stop that’s well worth making.
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.
FOOD & DRINK EVENTS
GLASGOW ■ Partick Retail Outdoor Market FREE Fri 19 & 26 Nov, 10am–3pm. Mansfield Park, Hyndland Street. ■ Queen's Park Farmers' Market FREE Sat 20 Nov, 10am. Queen's Park, 520 Langside Road.
■ Mansfield Park Farmers' Market FREE Sat 27 Nov, 10am–2pm. Mansfield Park, Hyndland Street. ■ A Celebration of Scottish Food Sat 27 Nov, 7.30pm. £35. Heart Buchanan, 380 Byres Road, 334 7626. Five-course meal to celebrate St Andrew's Day.
■ Silverburn Farmers' & Craft Market
FREE Sun 28 Nov, 10am–2pm. Silverburn, Barrhead Road. EDINBURGH ■ Edinburgh Farmers' Market FREE Sat 20 & 27 Nov, 9am–2pm. Castle Terrace, www.edinburghfarmersma rket.co.uk
■ Whisky Picnic FREE Sun 21 Nov, 8pm. Venue tbc, www.whiskypicnic.org Don your finest tweeds to try a few drams in an as-yet- undisclosed location. Sign up on the website and await instructions.
■ Chocolate and Wine Tasting Tue 30 Nov, 7.30–9pm. £5. Real Foods, 37 Broughton Street, 557 1911. Organic wines plus fair- trade, vegan, raw and even
Waterside Bistro
cholesterol-free chocolates. OUTSIDE THE CITIES ■ How To Drink Whisky Sat 20 Nov, 5.30pm. £10. Lennoxlove House, Haddington, 0844 357 7611. Ian Buxton showcases his book 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die, with a tasting
included. Part of the Lennoxlove Book Festival. ■ Meet the Brewer Thu 25 Nov, 6.30pm. £5 (£20 with dinner). Waterside Bistro, 1–5 Waterside, Haddington, 01620 825674. Taste beers from Loanhead's Stewart
Brewing, including Holyrood IPA, recent winner of the Best Blonde award at the World Beer Awards.
■ Local Masterchef Cook-Off Sat 27 Nov, 4.30–6.30pm. £10. Queen Margaret University, Musselburgh, 474 0000. Two former Masterchef winners go head-to-head cooking local produce and answering questions as they go. Part of The Saltire. ■ Taste of Scotland Festival Food Fair FREE Sun 28 Nov, 1.30–4.30pm. Undercover@, South Street. St Andrews, info@standrewsfestival. co.uk Live cooking demonstrations, live music and a farmers' market. Part of the St Andrews Festival.
18 Nov–2 Dec 2010 THE LIST 23