Food&Drink Recent Openings
The best of the new restaurant, café and bar openings in Glasgow and Edinburgh
Glasgow PAPA TONY’S ITALIAN 283 Sauchiehall Street, City Centre, G2 3HQ, 0141 332 3800, papatonys. co.uk, £5.99 (set lunch) / £18 (dinner) In truth, not much has changed since Paperino’s became Papa Tony’s. It looks the same with tables in front, cosy booths farther back and a rustic vibe from wood and terracotta tiles, and it attracts the same suits, shoppers, families and tourists. One difference is that the casual Italian food is now completely halal — a surprising first for the city. There’s much drizzling of balsamic dressing, whether on mozzarella sticks, a decent if somewhat soggy bruschetta, or the rocket-heavy chargrilled chicken salad. Pumpkin risotto is a good consistency, spiky with parmesan and mercifully free of the balsamic squirt. Good-value lunch and pre-theatre deals keep the place busy all day.
OKO NOODLE & SUSHI BAR 302 Sauchiehall Street, City Centre, G2 3JA, 0141 332 5200, okoglasgow.co.uk, £14 (lunch / dinner) With the same template as the Queen Street original, OKO’s second site on Sauchiehall Street is another late opener offering minimalist surroundings and Asian food until the early hours. Sushi stands out, made in full view of customers, with nigiri that are packed with rice and, say, ultra-fresh seabass, or scallops, or eel. There’s a bit of Thailand in the green curry, where roasted pumpkin is a savvy touch. Seasoning can be too restrained in dishes such as chicken yakitori, though it’s pleasant enough. But OKO is good at the sushi and noodle dishes – giving the more discerning evening reveller a worthy new twilight dining option.
CHE QUE BO!!! BARS & PUBS
287 Argyle Street, West End, G3 8TL, 0141 357 7377, tap-pub.co.uk, £15 (lunch/dinner) 32 THE LIST 20 Sep–18 Oct 2012
portion of cabbage salad (it’s a Swedish thing) served as standard with the oven- hot pizzas. As with the Meadows branch, the tasteful design has a wholesome edge, fresh breads, buns and cakes are available, and the coffee and other drinks are carefully chosen from good-quality, small British and Swedish producers.
PEP & FODDER CAFÉS
11 Waterloo Place, City Centre, EH1 3BG, £5 (set lunch) Waterloo Place can seem a bit lost, the ceremonial extension of Princes Street that no one but tourists and civil servants frequent, a backwater in the heart of the city. So all power to this uncomplicated but cultured sandwich bar with links to Bon Vivant bar on Thistle Street to notice the potential. Wood, steel and shiny green tiles frame some smartly presented food including freshly made sandwiches, proper panini, an attractive daily salad, pastries from Le Petit Francais and cakes from Lovecrumbs. Now open from 7am to 7pm, they also push the Sydney-San Francisco coffee ethic, with beans from Artisan Roast and a geeky approach to milk molecules.
THE SOUTHERN BARS & PUBS 22 South Clerk Street, Southside, EH8 9PR, 0131 662 8926, thesouthern.co.uk, £14 (lunch/dinner) It’s an indictment of the state of Edinburgh’s live music venues that a rock pub where Kurt Cobain once performed an acoustic set couldn’t survive, but that a middle-market dining room bar seems to be thriving. This was and will remain the Southern, though, and that it’s now owned by the team behind creditable success stories Holyrood 9A and Red Squirrel is a guarantor of reasonable quality. The formula involves a frankly envious selection of ciders, affordable wines and beers in bottles and on draught, with meaty homemade burgers taking a starring role on a food menu that’s expansive but not overstretched.
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.
Glad Tidings
There’s no shortage of cafés in Glasgow’s Southside, but this latest arrival in Shawlands offers much more than just coffee and cake, as Kevin Scott discovers
T he Glad Café is a social enterprise three years in the making and, with a venue to the rear of the main café, it promises to be a platform for the arts in the area. An enticing showcase for local indie and electronic bands is luring people south every week, and more is promised, from a focus on world music to film screenings. This dedication to fulfilling its ideological purpose has not led to it overlooking the main reason people frequent cafés. The coffee, supplied by Glasgow’s Dear Green, is as terrific as the selection of cakes. A typical breakfast menu offers filled rolls, egg dishes and pastries until 1pm. For lunch, spiced lentil and split pea soup is superb, with a gentle hit and just the right consistency. Alongside sandwiches to suit every palate are daily specials featuring a fish, meat and vegetarian dish. Spiced harissa chicken is tender, if lacking a bit of bite, though accompanying moghrabieh is juicy and fresh, with onion, peppers and herbs mixed into the giant couscous. A simple evening menu features Middle Eastern, antipasto and fish plates to share, a welcome option if you plan to step into the venue for one of the impressive line-up of gigs held every week.
THE GLAD CAFÉ
1006a Pollokshaws Road, Southside, G41 2HG 0141 636 6119, thegladcafe.co.uk
Ave. price two-course meal: £12 (lunch) / £14 (dinner)
Roughly translated as ‘Man, that’s good’, Che Que Bo!!! promises a (self- confident and rather shouty!!!) blend of Valencia and Scotland. It is in a good corner spot, previously the Goat, and when the sun’s shining on the tables outside and the massive windows are open it’s a fitting venue for a tapa or two. The selection of 20 or so include the familiar tortilla, patatas bravas and chorizo; also the stand-out Valencian meatballs – coarse, meaty and rich with a chilli kick; plus Shetland mussels and haggis, while pub pizzas and burgers are also present. Spanish drinks include Estrella and Alhambra and the entire wine list – enough to liven up the regular La Liga airings.
Edinburgh PETER’S YARD STOCKBRIDGE SCANDINAVIAN PIZZA CAFÉ 3 Deanhaugh Street, Stockbridge, EH4 1LU, 0131 332 2901, petersyard. com, £14 (lunch/dinner) It’s not hard to understand why the well-ordered, quality-driven approach of Peter’s Yard headed to Stockbridge. To open what’s essentially a small pizza café right beside Pizza Express is the harder part to grasp. It’s pays-yer-money- takes-yer-choice territory: Peter’s Yard has the more cultured, understated and expensive sourdough pizzas, with the choice limited to three styles and a side