14 Best Restaurants in Glasgow, Scotland

Anything but a shack, this intimate dining room has heavy wooden tables and chairs, an elegantly ornate ceiling, and a bar so shiny and inviting that it seems to almost insist you have a drink. The food comes from the sea—oysters, lobster, and squid—and you can have your choice served iced, grilled, roasted, or battered. The fish varies daily according to the day's catch, and only local and sustainably sourced Scottish seafood is featured. The fish sandwich and crab cakes are favorites on the lunch menu. In the evening, mussels and scallops draw the eye. The buzz of conversation and the perfectly modulated music create the right atmosphere. Reservations are essential.

A 19th-century inn turned into an elegant restaurant, the Finnieston retains the dark wood and narrow cubicles of earlier times, but today it is one of the new high-quality seafood restaurants that have transformed the faded Finnieston area into a fashionable district. The menu allows you to choose the fish and how it is prepared, the sauce, and salad or vegetable sides. You can also eat in the bar, but wherever you sit, choose from the enormous menu of fine cocktails and an especially lengthy gin selection with over 50 options.

The brand known as Mother India really covers four adjacent restaurants rather than just one location, all highlighting small plates of impressive Indian cuisine. What makes this place across from Kelvingrove Art Gallery so popular is the combination of high-quality cooking and an extensive range of tastes, from the vegetarian dal to spicy ginger chicken. The style is casual, although the interior is an opulent mix of dark wood, heavy cloth napkins, and luxury silverware. It's usually crowded, so don't expect much intimacy, but do expect the finest Indian food the country has to offer. 

West-coast shellfish farmers own this sleek restaurant and feed their customers incredibly succulent oysters, scallops, and mussels. The pots of mussels, steamed to order and served with any of a number of sauces, are revelatory, and scallops, prawns, and oysters come together in a wonderful seafood pasta. The surroundings are simple but stylish, with white walls, cool ceramic tiles, wood floors, and wooden furniture. Another plus is the staff, who are helpful and unpretentious. This is where locals take their favorite out-of-towners, including for lunchtime specials and pretheater menus that are a very good value.

This eatery has completely rethought Asian cuisine, taking Chinese, Malaysian, and Thai cooking in new directions and using sauces that are fragrant and spicy but never overpowering. Subdued lighting, neutral tones, and dark wood create a calm setting for specialties including superb dim sum and crisp wontons filled with delicious combinations of crab, shrimp, and chicken. Leave room for the main dishes, especially the tiger prawns and scallops in a sauce made from dried shrimp and fish. Familiar dishes like beef in black bean sauce are astonishingly delicate and aromatic. The vegetarian menu is adventurous, too, and the cocktails are captivating.

For many years Stravaigin has maintained the highest quality of cooking, creating adventurous dishes that often combine Asian and local flavors and unusual marriages of ingredients. You can try the piri piri quail (the seasoning is used in Africa) or the restaurant's famous haggis and neeps (turnips), symbolizing its commitment to local produce. A wide variety of wines is available, including some uncommon ones. The café-bar is abuzz with conversation; the downstairs restaurant serves the same menu, but the environment is quieter.

Occupying the former headquarters of the Anchor Line, whose ships sailed from Scotland to America, this bar and restaurant near George Square has been impressively refurbished to create the sense of fine dining aboard a luxury ocean liner. The menu reflects the voyage, too, including Scottish seafood and lamb, and a full range of steaks and their sauces to represent America. Wine and drinks follow the same transatlantic theme. Dine in the bar for more casual fare, such as salads and steak sandwiches. The slightly less expensive but equally elegant basement restaurant, the Atlantic, is French-themed. If you are visiting during the holiday season, the Christmas decorations here are a thing of beauty: the building's pillared facade is wrapped in lights, bows, and greenery, with the theme continuing into the luxurious interior. 

A welcome addition for East End diners, BAaD occupies a sprawling campus of spaces, including a stylish glass-roofed courtyard, a large beer garden split over two levels, several refurbished shipping containers, and a central courtyard space within the heart of Glasgow's original flea market, the Barras. The fashionable space hosts a series of pop-up kitchens, bringing various street food options to a crowd of trendy East End residents and visitors alike. The hipness of the venue is a reflection of the area's changing personality. With its long tables and airy atmosphere, the space was designed with sharing in mind, but there is also a more intimate balcony dining area.

An early arrival in the redeveloping Finnieston area, Butchershop occupies what was once a pub and overlooks the bowling greens in Kelvingrove Park. Modern, open, and airy, it preserves the sociable atmosphere of its predecessor, though it is now a quality steak house offering a range of cuts from rump to T-bone. There's a well-priced, popular Sunday-roast menu, as well as good-value lunch and pretheater menus.

Occupying what was once the tea market, this trendy café draws a style-conscious crowd and can justly claim to have launched the dining renaissance of the Merchant City. The café opens early, serving its wonderful signature breakfasts, and the main menu is varied but resolutely Scottish; don't miss the scorched mackerel, the roast rack of Dornoch lamb, or the smoked haddie and Stornaway black pudding. Wooden tables and chairs crafted by Scottish artist Tim Stead are so impressively built, it's hard to believe they're inanimate. The bar on the second floor is more intimate, much less busy, and lets you order from the same menu—but that should remain a well-kept secret.

This amazing Italian delicatessen and restaurant is located on Alexandra Parade, one of the East End's busiest thoroughfares. The beloved spot has been family-run since 1982, when it first opened in the heart of Dennistoun. It can be difficult to get a table because the place is so popular, especially on Sundays.

Greek cuisine was not well represented in Glasgow until Halloumi arrived to fill the gap. Its large windows onto the street invite you in to a simply decorated interior with white walls and wooden tables, where you will find a reassuringly familiar menu of small plates, or meze. Beautifully cooked moussaka and souvlaki make their appearance along with slightly more expensive swordfish and octopus dishes. Like many other restaurants in the city, it has embraced the small plate/sharing menu in the Greek meze tradition.

A welcome addition to the West End dining scene, this trendy and accomplished restaurant has a thorough menu of Southeast Asian small plates that allow diners to mix and match different dishes. Founded by the team behind Finniston's popular Ox and Finch restaurant, Ka Pao opened its doors to high expectations from local foodies and absolutely did not disappoint.

This tiny, intimate restaurant serves only the freshest ingredients, superbly prepared, on a constantly changing menu. Halibut is served with choucroute and a passion-fruit dressing—a typically unpredictable meeting of flavors. The pork belly with hispi cabbage is tantalizing as is the red mullet with mussel broth. Desserts are equally seductive. Set-price lunch menus are both excellent and a good value. There's room just for 40 diners so the result is cozy, but curiously it doesn't feel too cramped. It's best to book ahead, especially on weekends.