Food&Drink Recent Openings
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The best of the new restaurant, café and bar openings in Glasgow and Edinburgh
Glasgow CHARLIE ROCKS NORTH AMERICAN 337 Byres Road, West End, G12 8UQ, 0141 334 3334, £10 (lunch) / £15 (dinner) The reliably popular Café Antipasti continues its identity crisis, having morphed into Sofia’s for a spell last year and now dramatically transformed into an American diner. It has an appealing, americana-free feel, with plenty of glass frontage, a small central bar area (amazingly lacking any US beer) and chunky furnishings. The menu tends towards UK pub classics rather than interesing American specialities: breakfast bagels and pancakes; nachos and chicken wings; Philly steak and hotdog sandwiches; burger, burrito, fried chicken and meatloaf mains. It’s all decent enough – wings are satisfyingly copious and messy, and the benchmark burger is lifted by a quality bun.
SAN ROMANO ITALIAN
61 Bath Street, City Centre, G2 2DG, 0141 332 8025, £10 (set lunch) / £16 (dinner) This newcomer, previously Sannino Pizzeria, exudes restrained elegance created by ornate mirrors and candlesticks, enhanced by sleek dark leather booths. A diverse menu (there is also a tapas bar menu) complements the setting, offering modern takes on traditional cuisine. Delicately poached salmon is nicely balanced with fennel and mascarpone; clams and crab spaghetti has chilli and parsley enticing the flavour from the Scottish seafood; and roast pork belly is flavoursome and crispy. Desserts are a highlight – perfectly poached pear, with smooth pistachio ice-cream whose lightness never overpowers the fruit. With prompt but unaffected service, it is a promising start, and distinct enough to become a popular city centre choice.
Edinburgh CAFÉ VOLTAIRE BAR-CAFE
36–38 Blair Street, Old Town, EH1 1QR, 0131 247 4707, thecabaretvoltaire.com, £8 (pizza) The purchase and renovation of 38 THE LIST 17 Nov–15 Dec 2011
savoury option such as a courgette loaf. Tea, coffee and hot chocolates are served – each sourced from other artisan local purveyors – to reinforce the sense of community spirit, discerning quality and home-spun charm.
HEMMA BAR
75 Holyrood Road, Old Town, EH8 8AE, 0131 629 3327, £6 (lunch) / £12 (dinner) Hemma – which means ‘home’ in Swedish – is an uptown move for busy Leith bar operators Mike and Anna Christopherson. As with their other venues such as Boda and Joseph Pearce, what they bring to the long-empty Tun building near the Holyrood Parliament is a laid-back blend of Scandanavian themes and contemporary bar nous. They’ve tried to match the large acreage of glass and concrete in the Tun with soft furnishings, a splash of art and funky wallpaper, and with rye-bread open sandwiches, warm noodles and less familiar continental beer brands they’re clearly comfortable offering something different from the pub standards.
THE BAKEHOUSE CO CAFE-TEAROOM 32c Broughton Street, EH1 3SB, 0131 557 1157, £8 (lunch) Having changed hands in 2010, then suffered a destructive fire in 2011, it has been a turbulent time for The Bakehouse. In that time, its evocation of the traditional values of tea and cake has started trending around town, and their nostalgic theme with antique cake stands, silver teapots and bare brick walls suddenly seems less of an original selling point. Comfortable window tables remain as appealing as ever. Teas, coffees, lunchtime sandwiches and baked potatoes are the mainstay, joined by various in-house creations including pies, soups, a daily stew, scones and
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.
French connection The new restaurant at Edinburgh’s Institut français is simple in conception, but has a perfect French accent. Hannah Ewan paid a visit
I f you look carefully there’s now a menu attached to the railings of the French Institute, just off Queensferry Road. Walking down slightly scruffy, institute-yellow stairs to the basement feels like heading to a school canteen, and inside Le Bistrot’s décor is limited to French fi lm posters, reclaimed armchairs and small tables pasted over with pages from Le Figaro. Yet it manages to feel entirely French, and, somehow, cool in an hidden secret way. It offers simple, classic dishes in perfectly accented French, including rich fi sh soup with roille and croutons, or specials like juicy, slow cooked guinea fowl. There are simple snacks of sardines with shallots, or bread and cheese platters, while eating a fl aky croissant in the romantically tousled garden is the stuff of movies. Run by the team behind L’escargot restaurants, with the same suppliers including Au Gourmand bread and pastries, basic quality is high. With chef Romu doing all the cooking and serving, the food is simple of necessity, but also from a belief that complicated doesn’t always mean better.
LE BISTROT DE L’INSTITUT FRANCAIS D’ECOSSE
13 Randolph Crescent, West End, Edinburgh,
EH3 7TT, 0131 225 5366
Open Mon–Fri 10am–4pm. Closed Sat/Sun. Ave. price two-course meal: £12.50 (lunch)
independent Edinburgh venue Cabaret Voltaire by Glasgow’s G1 empire has divided the city’s clubbing fraternity, but there can be little doubt that the new regime have improved the basement venue’s ground-level bar. Newly uncovered window arches end a bright aspect to what still feels atmospherically like an Old Town cellar, yet the place is smart and contemporary at heart, with a range of coffees and teas reinventing the place as a daytime café, while dimmed lights during late opening hours contribute to potentially one of the city’s best clubber’s hangouts. A strong drinks menu and a range of freshly prepared pizzas until 1am (on two for one offer until 8pm) add to the allure.
LOVECRUMBS CAFE-TEAROOM 155 West Port, EH3 9DP, 0131 629 0626, £6 (tea and cake) Two ladies at the forefront of Edinburgh’s homebaking movement, Rachel Morgan and Hollie Love Reid of Lovecrumbs, now have a tearoom in which to show off their baking exploits. With scraped paint on the walls, undulating wooden floorboards and simple, mismatched furniture – the cakes are displayed in an open dresser – it’s every inch austerity chic. On any given day they’ll have around ten different items including classic sponges, tarts, brownies, little biscuits and madeleines, along with at least one