Restaurants, Fish & seafood, Pre-theatre menu

The original Two Fat Ladies balances restaurant details with less formal, bistro-esque qualities. The dark interior with its ornate golden border looks towards the former; an open plan kitchen and chatty ambience nudge things the other way – a classy…

Entering Rogano – one of Glasgow’s best-known restaurants – is like stepping onto a Cunard liner circa 1930. This 80-year-old institution and its Art Deco stylings are well documented but there’s nowhere else in the city remotely like it. The experience…

Edinburgh still has its tucked-away places, the neighbourhood joints quietly making loyal locals’ tummies happy week after week. Sweet Melindas is one such place. It’s the front room of a tenement so it feels like you’re stepping into someone’s home.

You’d think Arisaig’s location around that climate-free covered-style courtyard would pull in weather-beaten punters all day long, but although evening crowds throng, the cobbled delights of Merchant Square are a tad more sedate around lunchtime which…

Established in 1988, City Merchant's reputation as one of the best fish restaurants in Glasgow is as much down to owners who pride themselves on the freshness of their seafood as it is to the resulting cuisine that is undeniably impressive. A decadent…

Popular with tourists, shoppers and business people, the ‘up the toon’ branch of Fishers aims to offer something for everyone and mostly succeeds. The menu is a game of two halves: Fishers classics focus on comfort food like fish-cakes, fish and chips…

For a Ship that's firmly anchored to the Shore, albeit just a clam shell's lob from the Water of Leith, this is a properly nautical experience. Admiralty charts serve as wallpaper, oars hang from the ceiling and blackboards at every turn list the…

Once headquarters of the Bank of England, the restaurant still has a feel of money about it. With original features like wood panels and an Art Deco ceiling offering a diffused soft light. With striking paintings and leather-clad booths, the overall…

What the Cabin lacks in location (a rather uninspiring spot on the Whiteinch-end of Dumbarton Road) it makes up for in quality cooking and bags of character. The outside is decorated with sophisticated art deco-style lettering, but inside it is…

The quiet assuredness and sensible prices of Seumas MacInnes’s fish venture mean it does more than just bask in the nearby glory of its much older brother, Café Gandolfi. Scotland’s waters provide the produce but it’s the continental ‘fritto misto’ that…

Mussels are the good guys of the fishies-on-dishies world, being cheap, plentiful, sustainable (and fun to eat with the pinchy shell-grabby thing). The Mussel Inn makes the most of this, with a casual wallet-and-stomach pleasing experience. Dive…

The informality of the Mussel Inn is one of its principal attractions – a relaxed, almost café-esque atmosphere that’s enjoyably appropriate for the experience of tearing mussels from their shells, getting fingers dirty and dipping bread into the…

As the go-to destination for a drink in South Queensferry, Orocco Pier’s stunning views of the Forth Rail and Road Bridge ensure it’s a popular, stylish haunt. While the Antico bar at Orocco has long been the default destination, its adjacent sister…

If you are a lover of both wine and jazz, then Whighams has pretty much got it covered. Their Sunday-night jams and monthly wine-tasting events are in with the West End bricks, occasions suitably enhanced by the bar’s candlelit cellar atmosphere. The…

Named after a mythological maiden who died of heartache on the Bay of Naples, La Partenope offers a taste of Napoli on Dalry Road. This family restaurant is operated by a sibling trio: chef Paolo creates magnificent dishes, brother Renato is the…

The Buttery is the only ‘destination’ restaurant in Glasgow that actually feels like a quest to get to, hidden in no-man’s land near the M8. Hushed tones, stained glass, ornaments everywhere – it’s full of character, as well as fine food (and not just…

It’s nice to see roast salmon on a Glasgow menu, and even nicer to have thoroughly crispened, blackened skin that gives way to robust flesh with heaps of flavour. It’s typical of the Two Fat Ladies restaurants, where produce is high quality and cooking…