
Scotland's 'best city for a night out' that was named top Europe party destination
Summer is here, which means more people across Scotland will be heading out with their friends for some fun. Now that the chill of winter is long behind us, it is the perfect time to enjoy a night on the town.
There is no wrong way to have a night out, and everybody will have their own preferences. Some enjoy heading to a nightclub for an evening dancing, while others prefer a more quiet and laid-back activity.
Deciding where to go is also a major decision to make, with Scotland's cities generally offering the most variety. One was even previously named among the best in Europe for night out.
As previously reported by the Daily Record, Glasgow topped a list of Scottish cities based on factors like late-night events, dance clubs, public transport, and facilities such as hotels and restaurants. It was even described by the experts as a "city that never sleeps".
When it comes to nightclubs in Glasgow, there is a huge range of options to consider. There are clubs to suit every taste and preference.
Among the most popular nightclubs in the city are Sub Club, The Berkeley Suite, and La Cheetah. The former is among the world's longest-running underground dance clubs, and specialises in house and techno music.
Elsewhere, another top nightclub in Glasgow is Club Tropicana. Unlike most clubs in the city, which play predominantly contemporary music, Club Tropicana is dedicated to the 1980s—with themed decor and special event nights.
If club nights are not your thing, many other venues in Glasgow regularly host other types of live music. The city was even previously named the UK's first UNESCO City of Music.
Whether you are into jazz or rock, there is a venue in Glasgow for you. King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, The Garage, and Barrowland Ballroom all regularly feature famous musicians from around the world.
A more unique option for a night out in Glasgow is Fayre Play, which describes itself as "Scotland's first funfair games experience for adults". It features nine funfair games, including 'skee-baw' and duck hunt, while food and cocktails are also available.
Meanwhile, there are also plenty of places to grab a bite to eat in Glasgow on a night out. From fine dining restaurants where you can enjoy a fancy dinner before heading out to takeaways you can nip into on the way home, you are spoiled for choice.
The city is home to Michelin-starred restaurants UNALOME by Graeme Cheevers and Cail Bruich, while other popular choices include Ox and Finch, Ubiquitous Chip, and Sugo Pasta. On the other hand, heading to Blue Lagoon for a fish and chips after a night out is a rite of passage in Glasgow.
Unsurprisingly, given its status as Scotland's biggest city, there is also no shortage of places to spend the night in Glasgow. Whether you are looking for a fancy hotel with a spa or just a place to rest your head, the options are endless.
Kimpton Blythswood Square Hotel is a five-star hotel in the heart of Glasgow. It features recently renovated rooms, a renowned spa, and even destination seafood restaurant iasg.
Other accommodation options include the Dakota Hotel Glasgow and the Doubletree By Hilton Glasgow Central. There are also many Premier Inn and Travelodge hotels dotted around the city.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Herald Scotland
32 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Irvine Welsh documentary was a fitting end to close the EIF
Irvine Welsh is full of stories, one reason he is such a prolific author. He isn't short of anecdotes, either, or of opinions. These range from politics to what he mockingly refers to as his 'practice', in other words his approach to fiction writing. But he also has the raconteur's gift of delivery and – whisper it – a whiff of the public intellectual to him. God knows we need that breed these days. Throw in his oeuvre (another term he probably hates) and his authorship of the most iconic Scottish novel of the last 30 years, and you can see why he is such a rich subject for a documentary. Unsurprisingly there have been a few to date. But Edinburgh-based film-maker Paul Sng's is undoubtedly the best, making it a welcome and fitting work to bring down the curtain on this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival. Artful, considered, imaginative, rewarding, though-provoking and pleasingly high concept, it avoids dwelling too much on past glories to foreground its subject in the present. Read More: We open, though, with a sort of career précis. It comes courtesy of clips from an onstage interview conducted at a Toronto literary festival by Welsh's fellow Edinburgh-er Michael Pedersen, fast approaching national treasure status himself. Still in Canada, we then see Welsh visit the offices of a couple of lifestyle/therapy gurus in order to take hallucinogenic drug Dimethyltryptamine. Known as DMT – or, sometimes, the businessman's drug, because the trip it induces can be had in a lunch-break – it offers Welsh a break from the reality which he says is 'not enough' for a writer and from which Sng takes his intriguing title. Having brusquely headed off some therapy-speak 'bullshit' from the shaven-headed wellness dudes – just give me the drug is Welsh's simple request – he takes to a mattress to enjoy the experience. We return to him there throughout, Sng using this as a framing device and as a slipway to launch the free-wheeling sequences in which Welsh, dressed in white suit and t-shirt, wanders through an abandoned factory as images and colours are projected onto him and the walls. These sequences are trippy and psychedelic, and have the effect of making it look as if he is in some liminal space, or is being invited to amble through a dream version of his own life. Much of the projections show old footage of Edinburgh, causing the author to reflect on his early life, the death of his parents, his use of drugs, his reasons for first picking up a pen. 'I wouldn't have been a writer if it hadn't been for Acid House,' he says at one point. Sng also drops in excerpts from Welsh's novels, accompanied by even trippier visuals. The obliging readers include Liam Neeson (a passage from The Acid House), Stephen Graham (Glue), Maxine Peake (Porno), Ruth Negga (Dead Men's Trousers) and, last, an unspecified voice with a very slight Australian lilt. Could it be? It is: Nick Cave, reading from The Blade Artist. Too much of this would be, well, too much, so interspersed with the curated readings and the jazzy visuals are more prosaic sections. We see Welsh and his wife Emma at Traquair House in the Borders following a book festival event. We watch him play football with childhood friends in Muirhouse, at the ground of Lowland League football club Civil Service Strollers, then chatting easily with them in the bar afterwards. We see him in LA with his manager, at his house in Miami, and at the boxing club he frequents there. Sng controls and presents his material well, though it's Welsh's own observations, thoughts and opinions which really drive the film. Some are just wryly humorous. 'Married to me? I think it would be a hard shift,' he says, the only time he answers an off-screen question. Others are more reflective. 'Writing ... is essentially a square go with yourself,' he says. Then, later: 'You steal from your own life. You're constantly putting fangs in your own fucking neck.' And: 'The most important resource you have is time. I basically retired 30 years ago, I've just been indulging myself since.' But it's one of his post-trip comments which lingers most in the mind. 'I'm no longer an atheist,' he says. 'It makes dying a more exciting thing than a thing to dread.' No sign of that yet, though – it's very much a life and an appetite for life which Paul Sng's commendable documentary celebrates and explores.


Times
36 minutes ago
- Times
Prue Leith: I've had a bellyful of menus with essays on every course
All Dame Prue Leith wanted was a romantic dinner the night before a special day. On the evening before her wedding to the fashion designer John Playfair, the restaurateur and broadcaster selected a Michelin-starred establishment for an intimate date with her fiancé. 'No chance of that,' she said, as the pair were repeatedly interrupted by a waiter with a 'lecture' accompanying each course. Leith, 85, has taken umbrage with restaurants' addiction to superfluous explanation, which she says has resulted in menus far too long to take in before ordering. • Prue Leith: how to impress guests (with no effort) During the meal, the couple were handed a map of the location of the restaurant's suppliers and were expected to read it, she wrote in The Oldie magazine. Their intimate conversations were further interrupted as they were preparing to leave, when the chef emerged, seeking praise and more 'foodie talk', she said. They 'wouldn't go away', Leith complained.'Pandering to foodies, menu devisers now write essays on every course: 'Hand-dived Scottish king scallops, daily picked marsh samphire from the Solway Firth, Arran victory organic new potatoes' and on and on. 'Last week I was in what used to be a good pub and is now a gastro temple. I ordered 'sustainability-certified North Sea halibut loin, coated in tempura-style batter made from Hook Norton Ironstone lager and Billy's free- range organic eggs, served with locally grown Maris Piper potatoes, triple-fried in Cotswold Gold corn oil'. Translation: fish and chips'.' Other restaurateurs said it was about striking the right balance between informing and boring diners, but admitted that some went too far. Matthew Slotover, who co-founded the Mediterranean restaurant Toklas in central London in 2021, said: 'Some argue that it's a waiter's job to provide the colour and detail that elaborates on a dish description, but that assumes that the guest has time to listen or feels comfortable to ask questions about what they might be eating. The idea of including details on a menu that have a good story behind them but are also educational is what we're seeking to do.' • Know your onions! Try our ultimate foodie quiz Isaac McHale, of The Clove Club in Shoreditch, east London, said it was easy for chefs to 'forget that not everyone understands the words that we use in our little world. I don't like it when menus, by design, become exclusionary. If someone writes 'cucumber, togarashi, yuzu kosho' as an entire menu description, that assumes a very high level of understanding and makes people feel silly if they don't fully understand what those words mean. 'Not everyone knows that togarashi is a Japanese spice blend or 'seven spice', but if you write 'togarashi spice' you can describe the ingredient so someone can actually read the dish.' He added: 'Restaurateurs that use fewer words are suggesting that they are already using the best of the best, and that is a given for their restaurant menus. A 'slow roast leg of lamb' will sell five times more dishes than 'leg of lamb' on a menu. Yes, things can go too far but they can also be too succinct and as a nation we're becoming more and more interested in food and educated about it too.' The 'essays' handed to customers are not the only problem with modern dining, Leith said. 'Added to the foodie nonsense is the TikTok nonsense: influencers standing on their chairs to get a photo of their food. A restaurateur friend says that's only the start. Young influencers will book a table in a Michelin-starred restaurant and order just one glass of bubbly and one first course between them — just enough to snap each other at the table, in the fancy ladies' room and outside the front door.' Leith has previously praised Bentley's Oyster Bar in Piccadilly, London, for its 'straightforward' approach. The 108-year-old establishment is owned by the Irish chef Richard Corrigan. Prue Leith certainly knows her audience. If you are going to complain about restaurants to the readers of The Oldie, there are a few familiar bullseyes you should aim to hit. Pretentious food? Tick. Gastropubs? Tick. Annoying social media types? Tick. I'm surprised she didn't add hard seats, small portions and lukewarm food to her gripes. • Read more restaurant reviews and recipes from our food experts I simply don't recognise her complaint that menu writers produce mini essays on every course. I find the opposite. The vogue now is for entries that are brief almost to the point of rudeness: you are far more likely to get a bald 'scallop, pea, mint' or 'baby gem, Spenwood, girolles', leaving you to fill in the gaps. Besides, I'll take the occasional nod to a supplier or breed of pig over the tortured lyricism of the Eighties when a prawn cocktail became 'a symphony of seafood nestling on a bed of lettuce'. At least what is on your plate will probably be a hundred times better than it was back then. On the occasions when a chef does get a bit wordy, I take it as passion. An interest and pride in where good ingredients come from is what has elevated the standard of cooking in this country beyond all recognition. Complaining about the word count on the menu seems especially curmudgeonly. Mind you, I'm with her on how irritating influencers can be. It's one thing to quietly take a picture of your food before you eat it and quite another to disturb your fellow diners. Standing on chairs in pursuit of the perfect shot is just the start of it. I've witnessed people set up their own tripods and lights, ask waiters to remove and re-serve plates of food with a greater flourish and even, on one occasion, try to dim the lights of the whole restaurant to better capture a flaming crêpe suzette. It's as if they think the world revolves around them, and all power to Prue for pricking their self-centred bubbles. Tony Turnbull is Food Editor of The Times


Press and Journal
2 hours ago
- Press and Journal
Exclusive: How superfast broadband could turbocharge Belladrum Festival
If you were a returning festivalgoer at Belladrum this summer, you may have noticed your phone signal was better than in previous years. And that basic improvement could be about to unleash exciting new ideas for improvement at the popular Tartan Heart Festival. That's because the event now benefits from superfast 10 gigabit per second broadband being rolled out across rural areas in the Highlands. Organiser Dougie Brown said the improved connectivity was a 'gamechanger' for campers and traders. For example, businesses were able to process card payments smoothly. And families could keep in touch by accessing four wi-fi hotspots across the festival site. 'It was pretty flawless,' Dougie said. Dougie hopes the next step will be to have seamless wi-fi connectivity across the whole festival site. And the superfast broadband has given organisers some fresh ideas for what could come next. Concert highlights are already shown on the BBC. But future editions of Belladrum could perhaps see more live gigs streamed. And the ultra-fast internet could even result in quirky ideas like introducing online gaming at the festival. 'We're in the Highlands, but the reality is we're on a level playing field now with any big city, which is great,' Dougie said. Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival has been steadily growing for years. It can now hold up to 25,000 people and is the biggest camping music festival in Scotland. Organisers hailed this year's event as 'incredible'. We have already revealed how Highland businesses have been cashing in on the festival. And organisers are aiming big – with an open invitation to Scottish superstar Paolo Nutini. A 2014 report estimated visitors spent around £3.3 million at that year's festival. The event brought a £4.4 million boost to the local Highland economy. And those figures are only likely to have gone up in the 11 years since then given the festival's growth. Festival chiefs hope to soon commission another report to find out how much the event now contributes each year. 'Sometimes festivals are seen as frivolous fun, but there's huge economic impacts they have to the local area,' Dougie said. Belladrum is far from the only beneficiary of improved broadband. Recently we revealed how ultra-fast wi-fi was changing lives in Grantown as the Scottish Government announced Highland Broadband will receive £50 million. Dougie spoke to the Press and Journal after meeting Labour MP Chris Bryant, the UK Government telecoms minister. Mr Bryant was also interviewed by the P&J during his trip to Strathpeffer. He touted Belladrum as a huge success story for connectivity. 'It's been transformative for them,' Mr Bryant said.