Food&Drink Recent Openings
The best of the new restaurant, café and bar openings in Glasgow and Edinburgh
Glasgow CUSHION & CAKE CAFES 35 Old Dumbarton Road, West End, G3 8RD, 0141 339 4114, cushionandcake.com, £6.50 (lunch)
Brightening up a stretch of Old Dumbarton Road with an explosion of colour – in a distinctly genteel pastel way – this new tearoom is a rather enthralling step back in time, with crockery that your mother or grandmother probably used, classic old-school cake creations and reclaimed furnishings and trimmings. It’s a one-woman show with fledgling owner Pamela Clocherty preparing fresh sandwiches, soup and baking from a small open kitchen, while the place itself is comfortingly cluttered with her cushions and textiles and other local designers’ wares. For £8.50 you can enjoy the full afternoon tea treatment.
BOCADILLO CAFES 569 Sauchiehall Street, West End, G3 7PQ, 0141 221 0069, bocadillo.co.uk, £7 (lunch) Giving city slickers the quality soups, sandwiches and snacks that have sustained Hillington’s workers and a range of catering clients for a few years, this new café is a slick spot: glisteningly clean, tastefully furnished with white chairs and soft brown banquettes, all bound up with a stylish design – more global brand than Glasgow local. A couple of freshly prepared daily soups range from the traditional cream of chicken to the more unusual and flamboyant in chicken paella, while the two dozen sandwiches and paninis are well executed and nicely presented.
THE CHOCOLATE EMPORIUM CAFES
53 Byres Road, West End, G11 5RG, 0141 339 0808, £6 (lunch) Such is the dedication to the cacao bean, savoury food has no place in this small café, which has an unusually rustic décor for somewhere dealing in one of the great luxury items, with rough-hewn stone and ruggedly built tables, while a sofa and window seat offer cosier options. A half-dozen hot chocolates include nutmeg, cinnamon and orange varieties plus a darker 34 THE LIST 23 Jun–21 Jul
Animal Magic
Getting the beer ‘n’ burgers formula perfected is in the sight-lines for this independent West End bar, as Donald Reid found out
W hat many folk discovered and liked about Old Town bar Holyrood 9a (including ourselves, as it’s on our Eating & Drinking Guide Hitlist for 2011) can now be discovered and liked on Lothian Road under the name of Red Squirrel. Owners Fuller Thompson are gradually building a portfolio of bars and cafés in Edinburgh and Dundee, and the formula of gourmet burgers along with a extensive range of contemporary beers from near and far has clearly struck a chord. A little less spacious and classy compared to its city sister, Red Squirrel still offers smart surroundings dominated by bare brick, dark wood, elegant fittings and a mix of seating from small booths to refectory-style tables and secluded enclave.
This is the type of modern bar that has no shame in offering porridge and granola for breakfast, Suki teas and wine-bar style sharing platters for the nibbling after-work crowd. The signature gourmet burgers come in decent sourdough rolls and perched on a rustic wooden slab, with a zinc tin of straw fries and slaw alongside, while beers on tap range from hip North American wheat beer Blue Moon to St. Mungo’s from Glasgow’s WEST brewery, all available as 1/3 pint tasters for £1.
RED SQUIRREL
21 Lothian Road, West End, Edinburgh, EH1 2DJ
0131 229 9933, redsquirreledinburgh.co.uk Daiy 10am–late; food is served until 9pm.
Ave. price two-course meal: £10 (lunch/dinner)
bitter and a fiery chilli Mayan-style version. Fresh crêpes come with a rich, home-made chocolate sauce and a choice of additional fruit topppings.
Edinburgh DOVECOT CAFÉ BY STAG ESPRESSO CAFES Dovecot Studios, 10 Infirmary Street, Old Town, EH1 1LT,
StagEspresso.com, £9 (lunch) With its tapestry workshops and commitment to contemporary crafts, the Dovecot Studios is one of Edinburgh’s hidden cultural gems. The former swimming baths now has its long-awaited permanent café in a simple but bright and stylish gallery alongside the studio’s entrance foyer. Richard Conway’s new company, Stag Espresso, has set up a sleek daytime café offering a choice of daily soups
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alongside half-a-dozen clean-cut, hearty-healthy sandwiches, decent cakes and pastries, as well as well- handled Artisan Roast coffee and Tea Pigs tea.
JOJO’S DANISH BAKERY & CAFÉ CAFES 26 St Mary’s Street, Old Town, EH1 1TA, jojosdanishbakery.com, £6 (lunch) This is the kind of operation that can give Edinburgh a cosmopolitan name. Fresh, well-crafted pastries from the hand of half-Dane Joanna Coleman are baked in the basement of this Old Town café and sold not just from the premises but also farmers’ markets in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Fife. Stars of the show are the flaky pastry crowns, cinnamon swirls and deliciously light almondy tebirkes. The café itself is sparse and simple: just four IKEA- esque bare-wood tables and little more than a few Danish flags for decoration..
THE MOSQUE KITCHEN INDIAN 33 Nicholson Square, Southside, EH8 9BX, £4 (one-course lunch) / £10 (dinner buffet)
As one of Edinburgh’s most distinctive eating spots, the outdoor curry café beside Edinburgh’s Central Mosque off Potterow had a bit of a cult following. Over the summer of 2011, however, the original operation will wind down, with a more conventional indoor restaurant site on Nicholson Square now open. The no-frills approach is the same by day, with cheap but convincing chicken, meat and vegetarian options, while a more extensive all-you-can-eat buffet runs from 7pm onwards and takeaway is available from an adjacent unit. Further changes are planned for the autumn with the Mosque Kitchen, which channels profits into flood relief, schools and clinics in the Punjab, opening a further branch in the building currently occupied by the Forest Café.
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.