Glasgow, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

“Always ambient and fun” – Richard Caring’s stretching (twisting?) of the Ivy brand is easy to snipe at but has so far avoided degenerating into farce. For sure, “the food is certainly nothing superior”: fans may claim it’s “more than adequate”, but its overall ratings nowadays are only just the right side of poor. That said, even critics of the cooking often feel that the “lovely” interiors and “welcoming service” provide compensation, and fit the bill for making an occasion of a meal. In the capital, the most mentioned outlets are The Ivy Chelsea Garden (“delightful garden tables and ideal for a noisy girls’ night out”); and The Ivy Kensington Brasserie (“huge fun, loads of buzz” and “always a treat”). The Ivy City Garden and Canary Wharf’s Ivy in the Park follow along in terms of volume of feedback. The newest member of the spin-off family is The Ivy Victoria – a vast space with 300 guests over two floors.

Opened in June 2021, on the former site of Sisters restaurant, chef Graeme Cheevers (previously head chef at Isle of Eriska) hopes to impress the tyre men with the ambitious tasting menus at his first solo venture. (Unalome BTW is ‘a Buddhist symbol representing the path to enlightenment’). It opened too late to inspire survey feedback, but numerous press reviewers, including Chitra Ramaswamy writing in The Times, tout this as the city’s second Michelin star in waiting, and the AA awarded it a hard-to-achieve 3 rosettes in their late October 2021 awards.

Despite a strong performance in former diners’ polls, this well-known, brick-walled Finneston institution inspired too little feedback in our current annual survey for our proper rating process. We’ve maintained its listing and rating, though, on the basis of the historically strong performance of Kevin Dow’s interesting cooking, and our bet that nothing in the interim will have dented its friendly and casual approach.

“Set back by the epidemic, but the experience was well worth waiting for” – this attractive West End newcomer opened in August 2020, but many people are only now hearing of it in 2021. The back story is terrific! – chef Nico Simeone (of Six by Nico fame) handed management of this former branch of his chain to Senegal-born chef Modou Diagne, who had started as a kitchen porter before working his way up through the ranks. Our early feedback on the five-course menu for £35 says “he has not only upheld the high standards of Six by Nico, but taken them in his own thoughtful directions. Even greater things are still to come here!” (And The Sunday Times’s Marina O’Loughlin was impressed on her June 2021 visit).