EATING & DRINKING GUIDE
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25 T H E D I T I O N 20 1 8/ 1 9 L I ST.CO.U K / FO O D
25TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
EDINBURGH & GLASGOW EATING & DRINKING
EDINBURGH & GLASGOW EATING & EATING & DRINKING DRINKING
24TH EDITION 2017/18 £5.95 | LIST.CO.UK
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HOSPITALITY ON HOLD
Normally around Easter we’re publishing our annual edition of the Eating & Drinking Guide. Things are a little different this year, as Food & Drink editor Donald Reid explains to process what’s happening to our familiar social worlds, there is an upswelling of community support. Local shops, restaurants, cafés and bars are integral parts of our communities, as are the people who work in them. Finding ways to support them will be part of our local community efforts, and we should also remain aware of the mutual support that exists across the hospitality sector.
E very April for the past 26 years, The List has published its Eating & Drinking Guide covering the restaurants, cafés and bars worth knowing about in Edinburgh and Glasgow. In anticipation of the 27th edition, our team of around 70 reviewers spent the fi rst three months of 2020 checking out over 800 venues, including all the new openings that are always such an exciting part of our annual round-up.
We were also on the point of unveiling some major changes planned for the guide. But more on them later. Just as we were due to start laying out this year’s publication, the coronavirus crisis arrived. Even from the indications of these early days in what will surely be a prolonged situation, the impact on the hospitality sector across the UK is likely to be severe. Restaurants, cafés, bars, their suppliers, and many linked businesses are looking into a very diffi cult and often distressing period. Questions are being asked about paying staff and suppliers, placing orders, and even keeping businesses viable. Some are looking to focus on takeaways and deliveries, but even this aspect of the sector will struggle with the retreat of customers from outside contact and as economies tighten. The vast majority of restaurants, cafés and bars that appear in our guides are small businesses. They can often feel vulnerable in the good times, never mind circumstances as uncertain as these. However, even as we all try
that
With in mind, The List will be channelling its efforts into playing a part in that community, just as it has done for over a quarter of a century. We’ve therefore delayed publication of the 2020 guide with the intention of publishing at a point – maybe in a few months – when the hospitality trade is able to try and get itself going once more. We want to help that revival and remind you of all that’s out there to be discovered and enjoyed. It’s very likely that the restaurant trade will need your custom as never before.
When the guide does appear, those signifi cant changes mentioned earlier will become evident. Most noticeably, the guide is changing shape, from an A4 ‘magazine’ size to a more compact A5 handbag or coat pocket-friendly size. That said, neither the comprehensive coverage nor the way we review is changing; we’re planning for the content to remain much the same.
Secondly, we intend to separate our coverage of Glasgow and Edinburgh to give each city its own guide, providing greater focus for what are, as we’ve always maintained, very different dining scenes. And fi nally, we’ve decided to make the guides free of charge, making them available in all sorts of locations around both cities, from arts venues and cultural hubs to sports centres and information points. We hope that you’ll get the chance to see the new-look guides whenever the light starts shining on the other side of the coronavirus shutdown, a time when we may well have
reason to appreciate more fully the value of social contact. On behalf of The List, we sincerely hope that when this moment arrives, as many venues and businesses as possible are in a position to throw their doors open again to feed our bodies, minds, hearts and communities. Further information on the publication of the 2020 Eating & Drinking Guides to Edinburgh and Glasgow will be provided via list.co.uk/food and our normal media channel
SOME EDG LANDMARKS
1994 First edition, 16 pages long
1996 Expands to 32 pages; over 600 entries
1998 Hitlists introduced 2003 First annual awards; guide now 160 pages
2005 Over 800 entries including 100 new establishments
2012 Tiplists introduced 2018 25th anniversary edition
2019 Maps reintroduced: they’ll still be there in the new editions
2020 Two guides, smaller size, and free
1 Apr–31 May 2020 THE LIST 15