North Berwick, Scottish Restaurant Guide

An ivy-clad outpost in golfing country from Edinburgh-based Tom & Michaela Kitchin offers “excellent food and rooms – and a great breakfast”. It’s quality bistro fare, but despite its heritage not super-fancy: eg. French Onion soup, Haggis, neeps & tatties, Lemon mousse.

This old fisherman‘s inn on the historic harbourside was taken over by Jack Findlay (from Logan Thorburn, who ran it for 16 years) at the end of 2022, but it remains a cosy and traditional panelled space. Feedback in our annual diners’ poll on its traditional Franco-Scottish restaurant fare is very upbeat all-round, and in her May 2024 review The Times’s Chitra Ramaswamy acclaimed “a rare and perfect combination of warmth and formality… and the food is wonderful”.

Chef James Ferguson and partner Alethea Palmer relaunched this country pub about five years ago and it’s acquired quite a reputation (and received a glowing review from The Scotsman’s Rosalind Erskine in November 2023). Our feedback is also good if slightly more mixed: fans say it’s “simply fantastic” with “a relaxed atmosphere, plenty of space between tables and a sunny garden; not to mention excellent cooking with robust, delicious flavours using much local produce including seafood”. One critic, though, found the menu “hit ’n’ miss” and another reported some friction having “dared to criticise” a dish.

This two-year-old revival of an 18th-century watering hole in “the culinary no-man’s-land between Dundee and Edinburgh” is “just perfect”, with a “confident, pared-back menu” from chef Craig McAllister that has “an emphasis on local produce” and is “reasonably priced for the quality of the cooking”.