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Glasgow Times
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
Glasgow restaurants with outdoor seating for al fresco dining
From Bib Gourmand winners in the West End to small plates in the Southside, here are eight Glasgow restaurants with outdoor seating, perfect for al fresco dining. Five March 140 Elderslie Street The outdoor space at Five March provides a pocket of calm between the West End and city centre. Flavours here are vibrant, fresh and led by the seasons with the current a la carte offering featuring peach, puntarelle, lemon ricotta, apricot harissa and black pepper or oyster mushroom, lion's mane, king trumpet, celeriac and kimchi sesame. Although not fully vegetarian, Five March is a particularly great shout for those in search of a restaurant which truly celebrates meat-free dishes and prides itself on using the best of local produce. Read more: Five March - The Glasgow restaurant which 'deserves to be much busier on a Friday lunchtime' Celentano's 28 Cathedral Square Just a stone's throw away from the Glasgow Cathedral and the city's sprawling Necropolis, there are few restaurants in Glasgow with such an interesting setting as Celentano's. Make the most of that by securing a seat outside before ordering some delicious Italian fare like BBQ Jerusalem artichokes with toasted walnuts and cavolo nero or pappardelle with Dexter Beef ragu. It's also worth taking a glance at the drinks menu, which has a fantastic selection of organic and natural wines as well as vermouth created in-house by the enterprising bar team. The ideal partner for Isle of Barra Gin and Campari in their signature Negroni. Ox and Finch 920 Sauchiehall Street This beloved Bib Gourmand restaurant is back with a bang after a brief period of closure for refurbishment work earlier this year. Though the new interiors are looking incredibly chic, the spring menu, including skate wing, crab sauce, guindillas and capers, whipped cod roe furikake or endive or duck liver parfait, negroni marmalade and toasted brioche, tastes just as good outdoors. The Locale 241 North Street In their own words, The Locale at Charing Cross mixes "traditional British pub culture with a sprinkle of Americana dive bar attitude and a touch of European café-bar class". Granted, the yard-style seating area here isn't the comfiest set up. But, when the sun is shining, the space has a great atmosphere as the kitchen slings a menu of chicken tenders with house slaw and pickles or burgers with your choice of hot honey fried chicken, smashed Aberdeen Angus patties or vegan-friendly meat alternatives. If you fancy visiting on a weeknight, aim for Tuesday when tacos are priced at £1.50 with a Margarita to wash it down at £5. Lobo 758 Pollokshaws Road Slap bang in the middle of a neighbourhood recently voted one of the coolest in the world, the small outdoor seating area in front of Lobo is a real sun trap in the afternoons. They also happen to serve some of the best Mediterranean small plates you'll find in the city, from roast coley with crushed peas, mint and jamon brown butter to smoked tomatoes, ajo blanco and picada or house focaccia with rich, confit garlic. If you're a fan of their cooking, it might also be worth investigating Boca (the team's sandwich shop) hidden away within The Cooperage slightly further up Pollokshaws Road. Mono 12 King Street You don't have to follow a plant-based diet to appreciate the vegan-friendly food that has helped Mono to become an institution at King's Court. Their dairy-free mac and cheese is the stuff of legend, served with a wedge of super garlicky bread and coleslaw, while elsewhere on the menu, look out for hand-stretched sourdough pizzas, burgers or tofu satay bowls. If you're lucky enough to find a seat on one of the benches outside, there are few better places for catching rays around the city centre. Kelp 114 Cowcaddens Road Seafood lovers should make a beeline for Kelp on Cowcaddens Road when the sun shines for a menu full of Scottish produce served in their picturesque walled garden. Choose from Orkney crab doughnut with brown crab emulsion, chilli and sesame, hand-dived Barra scallops with lemon, caper and ajo blanco or keep things simple with a half dozen oysters on ice with a crisp glass of white wine. The Loveable Rogue 122-124 Nithsdale Road These days, the Loveable Rogue is perhaps best known for its bargain midweek steak frites deals served across its three city locations or a Sunday roast, which has been celebrated as one of the best in the UK by the Good Food Guide. But their newest branch in the city's Southside also happens to have a particularly appealing outdoor area, where you'll often spot diners sporting sunglasses and sipping on cocktails late into the evening. I was impressed with the chicken Kyiv on opening night last year, but it was a charred hispi cabbage dish served with black garlic, hazelnuts and miso butter emulsion that proved the surprise star of the show. It's hard to believe green veggies can taste that good.
The Herald Scotland
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Glasgow restaurants with outdoor seating for al fresco dining
Five March 140 Elderslie Street The outdoor space at Five March provides a pocket of calm between the West End and city centre. Flavours here are vibrant, fresh and led by the seasons with the current a la carte offering featuring peach, puntarelle, lemon ricotta, apricot harissa and black pepper or oyster mushroom, lion's mane, king trumpet, celeriac and kimchi sesame. Although not fully vegetarian, Five March is a particularly great shout for those in search of a restaurant which truly celebrates meat-free dishes and prides itself on using the best of local produce. Read more: Five March - The Glasgow restaurant which 'deserves to be much busier on a Friday lunchtime' Celentano's 28 Cathedral Square Just a stone's throw away from the Glasgow Cathedral and the city's sprawling Necropolis, there are few restaurants in Glasgow with such an interesting setting as Celentano's. Make the most of that by securing a seat outside before ordering some delicious Italian fare like BBQ Jerusalem artichokes with toasted walnuts and cavolo nero or pappardelle with Dexter Beef ragu. It's also worth taking a glance at the drinks menu, which has a fantastic selection of organic and natural wines as well as vermouth created in-house by the enterprising bar team. The ideal partner for Isle of Barra Gin and Campari in their signature Negroni. Ox and Finch 920 Sauchiehall Street This beloved Bib Gourmand restaurant is back with a bang after a brief period of closure for refurbishment work earlier this year. Though the new interiors are looking incredibly chic, the spring menu, including skate wing, crab sauce, guindillas and capers, whipped cod roe furikake or endive or duck liver parfait, negroni marmalade and toasted brioche, tastes just as good outdoors. The Locale 241 North Street In their own words, The Locale at Charing Cross mixes "traditional British pub culture with a sprinkle of Americana dive bar attitude and a touch of European café-bar class". Granted, the yard-style seating area here isn't the comfiest set up. But, when the sun is shining, the space has a great atmosphere as the kitchen slings a menu of chicken tenders with house slaw and pickles or burgers with your choice of hot honey fried chicken, smashed Aberdeen Angus patties or vegan-friendly meat alternatives. If you fancy visiting on a weeknight, aim for Tuesday when tacos are priced at £1.50 with a Margarita to wash it down at £5. Lobo 758 Pollokshaws Road Slap bang in the middle of a neighbourhood recently voted one of the coolest in the world, the small outdoor seating area in front of Lobo is a real sun trap in the afternoons. They also happen to serve some of the best Mediterranean small plates you'll find in the city, from roast coley with crushed peas, mint and jamon brown butter to smoked tomatoes, ajo blanco and picada or house focaccia with rich, confit garlic. If you're a fan of their cooking, it might also be worth investigating Boca (the team's sandwich shop) hidden away within The Cooperage slightly further up Pollokshaws Road. Mono 12 King Street You don't have to follow a plant-based diet to appreciate the vegan-friendly food that has helped Mono to become an institution at King's Court. Their dairy-free mac and cheese is the stuff of legend, served with a wedge of super garlicky bread and coleslaw, while elsewhere on the menu, look out for hand-stretched sourdough pizzas, burgers or tofu satay bowls. If you're lucky enough to find a seat on one of the benches outside, there are few better places for catching rays around the city centre. Kelp 114 Cowcaddens Road Seafood lovers should make a beeline for Kelp on Cowcaddens Road when the sun shines for a menu full of Scottish produce served in their picturesque walled garden. Choose from Orkney crab doughnut with brown crab emulsion, chilli and sesame, hand-dived Barra scallops with lemon, caper and ajo blanco or keep things simple with a half dozen oysters on ice with a crisp glass of white wine. The Loveable Rogue 122-124 Nithsdale Road These days, the Loveable Rogue is perhaps best known for its bargain midweek steak frites deals served across its three city locations or a Sunday roast, which has been celebrated as one of the best in the UK by the Good Food Guide. But their newest branch in the city's Southside also happens to have a particularly appealing outdoor area, where you'll often spot diners sporting sunglasses and sipping on cocktails late into the evening. I was impressed with the chicken Kyiv on opening night last year, but it was a charred hispi cabbage dish served with black garlic, hazelnuts and miso butter emulsion that proved the surprise star of the show. It's hard to believe green veggies can taste that good.
The Guardian
13-04-2025
- The Guardian
‘They called it black gold': but should cuttlefish be on our menus?
It can be braised low and slow or grilled in a hot flash, covered in sauce and canned or stirred through a paella. Cuttlefish, a cephalopod closely related to squid, is the seafood menu offering du jour. In March a cuttlefish risotto was added to the menu at Rick Stein's The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall. In Cardiff, at Heaneys, you can find a dish of pork belly, cuttlefish and borlotti beans. At Cycene in London's Shoreditch, a goat ragu with cuttlefish noodles, while at Silo in Stratford, cuttlefish is fermented to dress leeks, alliums and padron peppers. In Glasgow, Celentano's offers a linguine and cuttlefish ragu with black olives and tarragon. About 4,000 tonnes of cuttlefish are landed in the UK every year on average. Largely caught in the English Channel, very little of it ends up on British plates, with most exported, as it is a delicacy in France and Spain. 'It's such an underrated ingredient, packed with flavour, versatile, and when treated right it can really shine on a plate,' says chef Tommy Heaney, who runs his eponymous restaurant in Cardiff and who has long used cuttlefish. Heaney describes it as 'sweet, tender and meaty, more so than squid. It's incredibly delicate but holds up beautifully in rich or brothy dishes.' Dean Parker, chef at Celentano's, has cooked it for several years, and sources it seasonally – from February to July – from a 'trusted wholesaler who uses local dayboats'. His customers are increasingly curious and he says it is popular. Parker poaches the wings, tentacles and body for a ragu, the guts are cooked down in stock, and the ink sacks blended to enrich the stock. At Wildflowers, a Mediterranean-inspired restaurant in Belgravia, it has been on the menu since autumn, usually served in fideua or paella, both Spanish dishes. It has been a hit. 'People don't know what it is,' says executive chef Aaron Potter. 'If they read squid or calamari, they would immediately order it. It does mute sales a bit. But when they eat it, they get a better dining experience eating braised cuttlefish than squid.' Regulars always order it again, Potter adds. It is also being tinned, with British companies Rockfish and Sea Sisters releasing canned versions. Rockfish founder Mitch Tonks says it's in the top three products they sell. Sea Sisters offers two varieties: cuttlefish caponata and cuttlefish in a rich, jet-black, marsala sauce. It can be mixed into rice, served with pasta or simply on toast. Sea Sisters always sells out its limited production, despite the £14 price tag, says co-founder Charlotte Dawe. Britons eat a narrow range of mostly imported seafood – cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and prawns make up 80% of consumption in the UK. Nigel Haworth, chef patron at the Three Fishes in Lancashire, is running a 'Forgotten Fish' series of dinners this year, featuring megrim sole, brown shrimp, codling and cuttlefish. Haworth reckons Britons are increasingly 'excited by delving into what I class as forgotten fish'. Rather than exporting cuttlefish, Haworth thinks we should keep more of it. He likes it barbecued and pays half what he would for the more celebrated squid. 'It's so much tastier than squid, so tender it's unbelievable.' However, there are concerns over cuttlefish's sustainability. This week, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) released its annually updated Good Fish Guide. Cuttlefish saw no change from last year, with wild-caught pot, trap or creel options ranked amber ('OK – needs improvement') and trawled cuttlefish red ('avoid'). None were green. Tonks, who sources pot-caught where possible, said: 'It's been fished hard over the last decade, but it's fast growing and there are management plans being put in place.' Alice Moore, the MCS's Good Fish Guide manager, says interest in cuttlefish has soared over the past five years. The concerns are it is often trawled and there has not been a robust stock assessment. 'It seems like it's declining and probably being over-fished. The other problem is management. There is no limit to how much people can catch – it's a free for all.' Moore said potted cuttle was better, provided the eggs, which can stick to pots, are carefully returned to the sea. But the MCS would not recommend it as a sustainable option. In Plymouth, Caroline Bennett, founder of Sole of Discretion, which champions sustainable seafood from small-scale fishers, previously sold cuttlefish landed by a 'pioneering fisher' in Eastbourne, who caught it sustainably and ensured eggs returned to the seabed. Bennett says about five years ago foreign buyers turned to UK cuttlefish as an alternative to squid, and almost overnight it became less sustainable – turning from amber to red in 2020. 'Big trawlers had taken out so much of the biomass of cuttlefish, in Brixham they called it black gold,' she says. 'If [chefs] can buy pot-caught, then fine, but they're few and far between.' Rob Wing, owner of The Cornish Fishmonger, sells a small amount of the fish and has noticed rising interest. He believes there should be quotas and increased management for the fishing industry, but says this is an 'unwieldy process' that can take years. 'Clearly, the appetite for cuttlefish is relatively small, it's an emerging thing. If we all chose wider-ranging species from around our waters, not just salmon, prawns and cod, we would have a much easier time managing species.' Dawe, of Sea Sisters, says it is wholesalers' duty to source responsibly. 'It's not for a chef to have a marine biology degree and look at MCS ratings every five minutes. They have so many things to worry about.' At Sea Sisters, they avoid trawler-caught cuttlefish. 'We believe it's important to work with fishers who do things the right way,' she says. 'If we can create a better consciousness around eating our species domestically in the UK, then we've got a better future for coastal communities.'
