Life & style and Food & drink

Glass half full - 42Below cocktail world cup

10 Sep 2009

It was a battle of the ages. A dozen warriors armed with silver shakers, crushed ice and angostura bitters striving to become the finest cocktail creator in the world. The Glasgow and Edinburgh heats of the 42Below Vodka cocktail World Cup took place at…

Blue Moon 21st Anniversary

The UK's oldest gay café celebrates a milestone birthday

3 Sep 2009

Today Edinburgh boasts a thriving gay scene that includes bars and clubs, cafés and shops, with the area between Broughton Street and Picardy Place now popularly known as the ‘Pink Triangle’. It wasn’t always thus, however. Until the mid-80s there was a…

Are you being served?

Food & Drink editor, Donald Reid becomes maitre d' for the day

20 Aug 2009

‘Is everything OK with your meal?’ I heard the words and they seemed to have emerged from my lips. I was trying to do what maitre d’s do. With little else by way of qualifications, talking the talk seemed a good start. Reassuringly the team at…

Side Dishes

More culinary treats

20 Aug 2009

The old Claremont Bar at 133-135 East Claremont Street (near Powderhall) is now a bar/diner called Elbow. Behind it is a team including Wendy Schofield (aka Trendy Wendy of club Tackno) of The Street on Broughton Street. It’s serving breakfast from 9am…

The Two Figs opens in Glasgow

Giving a Fig, or two

14 Aug 2009

The team behind The Left Bank on Gibson Street have just opened up their second venue. Donald Reid went along

Take 3: Restaurants using local Fruit & Veg

14 Aug 2009

L’Artichaut 14 Eyre Place, Edinburgh, 0131 558 1608 Jean Michel Gauffre of La Garrigue has taken over the old Duck’s at Le Marche Noir in the New Town and plans to open this fine-dining vegetarian restaurant in late August. He promises ‘a French…

Tears on my Pilau

Claiming chicken tikka masala for Glasgow

10 Aug 2009

Chicken tikka masala became legendary in 2001 when then foreign secretary Robin Cook dubbed it ‘a true British national dish’. What’s generally forgotten is that Cook wasn’t handing out gastronomic gongs but groping around politically for evidence of…

Tom Kitchin - From Nature to Plate

Kitchin confidential

6 Aug 2009

All cookbooks reveal something of their author; first cookbooks are often most revealing of all as chefs justify their status by retelling formative experiences. As with the opening of their own restaurant, it’s both a statement and a landmark. Tom…

The Bratchpieces reinvent the Humble Pub Quiz

A family guffaw

6 Aug 2009

The Bratchpieces (faither Mark, elder brother David, or Bratchy and younger scion Neil, aka the Wee Man) are well known as Scotland’s only family of stand up comedians. They’ve taken that dynamic into all-Bratchpiece stage shows, and the logical next…

First Word - Allegra McEvedy

6 Aug 2009

First record you ever bought Ian Jury and the Blockheads’ ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’. Last time you were chatted up I don’t think I’ve ever been chatted up. I’m more of a predator. First film you saw that really moved you I think it…

Velvet Elvis & Amore Dogs

How to beat the neighbours as a restaurateur

6 Aug 2009

As a restaurateur you’re always interested in what’s going on around you. Who’s busy, who’s not, who’s hiring, who’s lost their chef. When Allan Mawn opened up Pintxos two years ago he had no such issues. He was so far west along Dumbarton Road there…

Food for Thought: Cook School by Martin Wishart

6 Aug 2009

I’m off to the cook school run by a Michelin-starred chef, so there’s no point in a big breakfast, is there? You do get to eat at a cook school, don’t you? Arrive for a 9.30am start and there’s a pot of coffee on the table, thankfully. Halfway…

Food news - Bakehouse Co, The Holyrood 9A and Cocoa Black

6 Aug 2009

There is always a rash of new places flinging their doors open in time for Edinburgh’s festival season, and this year is no different. One prominent newcomer to Victoria Street is a second branch of Broughton Street’s Bakehouse Co. Retaining some of the…

Side Dishes - The Yard, Gourmet Glasgow and Villeneuve Wines

6 Aug 2009

The main feature of The Yard, a new family restaurant and bar off Bonnington Road near Leith, is a large enclosed courtyard for outdoor eating with a decent chunk of it given over as a children’s play area. Run by the family behind Molly’s play area in…

Side Dishes: The Yard, Gourmet Glasgow & Villeneuve Wines

What's going on in Scotland's restaurants?

30 Jul 2009

THE MAIN feature of the Yard, a new family restaurant and bar off Bonnington Road on the way to Leith, is a large enclosed courtyard for outdoor eating with a decent chunk of it given over as a children’s play area. Run by the family behind Molly’s play…

Time for tea, at last - the best tea rooms

23 Jul 2009

Let’s play word association. Tea and … well, there’s coffee, and for the last decade or two we’ve been in a mocha monopoly with coffee chains over-populating our high streets, railway stations, book shops and most places in between. Tea and…

Taste Test: Biscuits

23 Jul 2009

Duchy Original’s Sweet Oaten and Heather Honey • 12 biscuits (150g) for £1.99 With the Duchy crest stamp there’s an refined elegance to this one, though whether it’s more than an upmarket digestive is open to question. As with a number of Duchy…

Side Dishes - news to nibble on

23 Jul 2009

Roy brett, chef-director of the Dakota Hotel Group, is to open up his own restaurant, Ondine (the name of a mythological water nymph), within the new Missoni Hotel on George IV Bridge in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Brett previously worked with…

Food For Thought - Green MSP Patrick Harvie

23 Jul 2009

As someone who stays in bed till the last possible minute each morning, too many of my breakfasts are missed, or consist of whatever I can grab on the way to the day's first meeting. This morning that means a Pret baguette and a black coffee from the…

Your Healthy Living Show

9 Jul 2009

Ah, the great Scottish diet. (You can make up your own joke involving the words ‘deep’, ‘fried’ and possibly ‘Mars Bar’ here, or just recycle one of the thousands already out there.) People who like to mourn such things will often mourn the fact that we…

Café Fish

9 Jul 2009

For a nation surrounded by sea, we can get ourselves into a right fankle over fish. There are the sustainability problems (explicitly set out in the recent film The End of the Line), the langoustines that are flown off to a more appreciative Spanish…

Taste Test: Cider

9 Jul 2009

Thistly Cross Cider Belhaven Fruit Farm, from Edinburgh Farmers’ Market and Cornelius Beers and Wines, 18–20 Easter Road, Edinburgh, £2.70 •••• Scotland’s first cider from the makers of Belhaven Fruit Ice, this cider is described as ‘Scottish and…

Six of the Best - Eating & Drinking around Morningside

9 Jul 2009

The Canny Man’s 237 Morningside Road, 0131 447 1484 One of Edinburgh’s most divisive drinking establishments, patrons of Morningside landmark The Canny Man are greeted at the entrance by a brass plaque banning mobile phones, cameras and…

Side Dishes

9 Jul 2009

The Big Tent Festival in the lovely setting of Falkland Palace’s orchard and grounds takes place over the weekend of Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 July. As the biggest eco-festival in Scotland, and the birthplace of the award-winning Fife Diet a couple of…

Food For Thought - Patrick Bardoulet

9 Jul 2009

I am from Paris, the focus of many of the celebrations associated with Bastille Day, 14 July. It’s a national holiday, so there’s the chance to enjoy breakfast – in Paris this will be a baguette and coffee or chocolate. It sounds disgusting to the…