3 Best Restaurants in Glasgow, Scotland

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.

Inside what was once the mansion of tobacco merchant George Buchanan, the Corinthian Club includes two bars, a nightclub, and a casino in its maze of rooms. At the heart of the building, the main restaurant, the steak-and-seafood-focused Brasserie makes a dramatic first impression with its glass dome and statues. You can dine here, take afternoon tea, or sip a cocktail in one of the small rooms that divide this huge space, but don't expect to find a quiet table in a corner.

Occupying a converted stable behind the Hillhead subway station on busy Ashton Lane, this restaurant is a Glasgow institution, with an untarnished reputation for creative Scottish cooking. Its street-level restaurant is a beautiful courtyard protected by a glass roof, and the more informal brasserie upstairs also serves less expensive dishes like haggis with neeps and tatties or a plate of mussels. The upstairs bar is invariably full and noisy with conversation. The creative menu might includes cod with hazelnuts and truffles, or Galloway roe deer, and there is an excellent lunch and pretheater menu for two or three courses.