Broughty Ferry Restaurant Guide

2024 Review: MasterChef: The Professionals winner “Jamie Scott is one of the UK’s finest unsung chefs” (setting aside that 2014 honour), say fans of the restaurant-with-rooms he launched with wife Kelly in 2016; “the wonderful food together with the young, local but knowledgeable serving team” make for a winning combination and “a window seat looking over the Tay estuary is a bonus” (indeed, the room has “some of the best-ever views”).

“Outstanding” seafood and views to match are the enticing prospect at this upscale contemporary-Italian, which is “not what you’d expect in traditional St Andrews: a dramatic, modern glass box overlooking the sea (great for watching the fulmars come in to land on the cliffs)”. “Scotland seems, at last, to have discovered it has some of the best fresh seafood in the world and this restaurant cooks it simply and well”. Any downsides? “In high summer it’s the default choice of the Pebble Beach golfing fraternity, so can become both noisy and busy”. The Ristorante celebrated its 20th anniversary last year and is smartly run by a young owner from a prominent Scottish-Italian hospitality family, Stefano Pieraccini.

“Just 100 metres from the hallowed portals of the Royal and Ancient”, all diners agree that the “location and general set-up” of this ambitious, contemporary restaurant with rooms, with a dining room overseen by Dean Banks, “give it so much potential”. But while supporters praise the “exceptional tasting menu” and all-round accomplishment here, others found it fell short this year: “we so so wanted to like this place, which used to be head and shoulders above any other restaurant in St Andrews”, but “service was quite simply not what you’d expect at this level” and there was “a mismatch between what’s on offer and the price” noted by a couple of long-term fans.

2023 Review: “A wonderful selection of dishes, perfect for vegans and omnivores alike” wins a thumbs-up for this long-established curry house (est. 1998). “Knowledgeable staff talk about the food and recommend combinations for you.”

“The Smeddle Family has consistently turned out very good food served by very knowledgeable and capable waiting staff” (all backed up by a heavyweight wine list) at this famous, upscale inn – sensitively modernised over the years and set “in a tiny village just outside St Andrews”. One reporter gives us the local lowdown: “As it happens the family have just announced that the business is up for sale. (March 2025). They have run it for twenty years and took it to one Michelin Star. Before them the legendary David Wilson ran it for thirty five years. Watch this space for details of the new owner…” [no transaction has yet been announced as of October 2025]

“The Dundee restaurant to be seen in and to eat at right now” – according to a May 2025 report from local paper ‘The Courier’ – Harris & Katie McNeill’s informal café/eatery is a year old and already notorious locally for its scrumptious Guinness Cake. It’s also attracted visits from The Times’s Chitra Ramaswamy who – in her October 2025 review – found it “hovers in the hip zone between café and casual restaurant” with a “concise, hyper-seasonal menu, chalked on a blackboard”. Reports please!

Chef Roy Brett’s Ondine closed in Edinburgh last December after 16 years, to reopen in spring 2025 at this new five-star hotel overlooking the hallowed golfing turf of the Old Course. It opened rather late to attract reports in our annual diners’ poll, but in her July 2025 review, The Times’s Chitra Ramaswamy invested in “the most expensive lunch… in ages”. Oysters are the star turn here according to Chitra – “to sit in this fine room at teatime, with this view, eating oysters of this calibre at these outrageously good prices, is one of the best things you can do with your hard-earned cash in Scotland.” Other dishes on the “minimalist and French-leaning” menu were a mixed bag: “lemon sole meunière is a masterclass in fish cookery, the fish soft, fluffy and white as a cumulus cloud”, but some of the cooking “needs finessing” – in particular, both salt-baked beets with whipped crowdie and monkfish au poivre were “way too salty”.

“On the top floor of this hotel which overlooks the 18th on The Old Course and then on to the magnificent West Sands where the opening to ‘Chariots of Fire’ was filmed, there are few more romantic places in Scotland” (well, so long as your partner doesn’t hate golf!) than the wood-panelled rooftop dining room of this upscale four-star hotel. Our feedback (admittedly limited) says “do try the traditional Sunday lunch” and Afternoon tea here is also a feature. When it comes to the more substantial fare – majoring in a selection of Aberdeen Angus steaks – we have less feedback, although in his September 2024 review, The Observer’s Jay Rayner was put off by what he saw as a craving for “an awful lot of grilled cow” (noting as he fled an atmosphere that “smells of newly pumped testosterone”).

2022 Review: Just shy of its centenary, and hard at work sprucing up its gardens (designed by the creator of Balmoral’s gardens no less) – an “elegant” country house hotel whose “airy restaurant” combines “super, fresh, beautifully cooked and presented food with professional and friendly service”. The kitchen garden is at the heart of the operation, and there are further dining spaces outdoors.