Eating and drinking in Scotland

While Scotland isn’t exactly known for its culinary heritage, the country’s eating habits are changing, and from the cities to some of the furthest islands, you can often eat extremely well, with a strong emphasis on fresh, local and organic produce.

Scottish fish and shellfish is the envy of Europe, with a vast array of different types of fish, prawns, lobsters, mussels, oysters, crabs and scallops found around the extensive coastline. The prevalence of fish-farming, now a significant industry in the Highlands and Islands, means that the once-treasured salmon is now widespread and relatively inexpensive. Both salmon and trout, another commonly farmed fish, are frequently served cold with bread and butter.

Scottish-reared beef is often delicious, especially the Aberdeen Angus breed, though Highland cattle are also rated for their depth of flavor. Venison, the meat of the red deer, is also popular – low in cholesterol and very tasty, it’s served roasted or in casseroles, and is often cooked with juniper and red wine. Other forms of game include grouse, which when cooked properly is strong, dark and succulent; pheasant, a lighter meat; and the less commonly served, but still tasty, pigeon and rabbit.

In rural Scotland, attitudes towards vegetarianism are still some way behind the big cities. While almost all pubs and restaurants will have at least one or two vegetarian options on their menus, they’re too often lazily predictable and overpriced. Veggies – and vegans for that matter – will nevertheless find plenty of great food on offer in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Breakfast

In most hotels and B&Bs you’ll be offered a full Scottish breakfast – Lorne sausage or beef links, bacon and egg, black pudding (blood sausage) and potato scones. Porridge is another likely option, as is fish in the form of kippers, smoked haddock or even kedgeree. Scotland’s staple drink, like England’s, is tea, though coffee is just as readily available everywhere. However, while smart independent coffee shops are now a familiar feature in just about all towns and cities, execrable versions of espresso and cappuccino, as well as instant coffee, are still all too familiar.

Lunches and snacks

The most common lunchtime fare in Scotland remains the sandwich, with a bowl or cup of hearty soup a typical accompaniment, particularly in winter. A pub lunch is often an attractive alternative; bar menus generally have filling but unambitious options such as soup, sandwiches, scampi and chips, or steak pie and chips, with vegetarians suffering from a paucity of choice. That said, some bar food is freshly prepared and rivals the a la carte dishes served in adjacent hotel restaurants. Pubs or hotel bars are among the cheapest options when it comes to eating out – in the smallest villages, these might be your only option.

Restaurants are often, though not always, open at lunchtimes, when they tend to be less busy and generally offer a shorter and cheaper menu compared with their evening service; increasingly, however, more and more restaurants are closed at least one, if not two, days a week owing to increased running costs and staff shortages. For morning or afternoon snacks, as well as light lunches, tearooms are a common feature; here you will often find some fabulous home baking on offer.

As for fast food, chip shops, or chippies, abound, the best often found in coastal towns within sight of the fishing boats. Deep-fried battered fish is the standard choice – when served with chips it’s known as a ‘fish supper’, even if eaten at lunchtime – though everything from hamburgers to haggis suppers is normally on offer, all deep-fried, of course. Scotland is even credited with inventing the deep-fried Mars bar, the definitive badge of a nation with the worst heart-disease statistics in Western Europe. For alternative fast food, major towns feature all the usual pizza, burger and baked potato outlets, as well as Chinese, Mexican and Indian takeaways.

Evening meals

There’s no doubt that, as with the rest of the UK, eating out in Scotland is expensive. Wine in restaurants is marked up strongly, so you’ll often pay £15 for a bottle selling for £5 in the shops; house wines generally start around the £10 mark.

If you’re traveling in more remote parts of Scotland, or staying at a B&B or guesthouse in the countryside, ask advice about nearby options for your evening meal. Many B&Bs and guesthouses will cook you dinner, but you must book ahead and indicate any dietary requirements.

As for restaurants, standards vary enormously, but independent restaurants using good-quality local produce are now found all over Scotland. Less predictable are hotel restaurants, many of which also serve non-residents. Some can be very ordinary despite the highfalutin descriptions on the a la carte menu. You could easily end up paying £30–40 a head for a meal with wine.

In central Scotland (particularly in Edinburgh and Glasgow), and increasingly beyond, you’ll find a range of international cuisines, including Japanese, Thai, Caribbean and Turkish, as well as the more ubiquitous Indian, Chinese and Italian establishments. Glasgow is one of Britain’s curry capitals, while Edinburgh’s restaurant scene is consistently lively, its seafood and vegetarian restaurants a particular strength.

Among traditional desserts, clootie dumpling is a sweet, stodgy fruit pudding bound in a cloth and cooked for hours, while cranachan, made with toasted oatmeal steeped in whisky and folded into whipped cream flavoured with fresh raspberries, or the similar Atholl brose, are considered more refined.

Food shopping

Most Scots get their supplies from supermarkets, but you’re increasingly likely to come across good delis, farm shops and specialist food shops. Many stock local produce alongside imported delicacies, as well as organic fruit and veg, specialist drinks such as locally brewed beer, freshly baked bread, and sandwiches and other snacks to take away. Look out, too, for farmers’ markets (http://taste-of-scotland.com/farmers-markets-in-scotland), which generally take place on Saturday mornings; local farmers and small producers, from pig farmers to cheesemakers and small smokeries, set up stalls to sell their specialist lines.

Scotland is notorious for its sweet tooth, and cakes and puddings are taken very seriously. Bakers with extensive displays of iced buns, cakes and cream-filled pastries are a typical feature of any Scottish high street, while home-made shortbread, scones or tablet (a hard, crystalline form of fudge) are considered great treats. In the summer, Scottish berries, in particular raspberries and strawberries, are particularly tasty.

You’ll also find a number of specialist cheesemongers. Many restaurants serve only Scottish cheese after dinner. Look out for Isle of Mull, a tangy farmhouse cheddar; Dunsyre Blue, a Scottish Dolcelatte; or farmhouse Dunlop, the local version of cheddar.

Drinking

As in the rest of Britain, Scottish pubs, which originated as travelers’ hostelries and coaching inns, are the main social focal points of any community. Pubs in Scotland vary hugely, from old-fashioned inns with open fires and a convivial atmosphere, to raucous theme pubs with loud music and satellite TV. Out in the islands, pubs are few and far between, with most drinking taking place in the local hotel bar. In Edinburgh and Glasgow you’ll find traditional pubs supplemented by upbeat, trendy café-bars.

Pub opening hours are generally 11am to 11pm, but in the cities and towns, or anywhere where there is demand, places stay open much later. Whatever time the pub closes, last orders will be called by the bar staff about fifteen minutes before closing time to allow for drinking-up time. In general, you have to be 16 to enter a pub unaccompanied, though some places are relaxed about people bringing children in, or have special family rooms and beer gardens where the kids can run free. The legal drinking age is 18. As with the rest of the UK, smoking is not allowed in any pubs, bars or restaurants. Note that often-restrictive local by-laws govern alcohol consumption in public places, though enforcement varies.

Whisky

Whisky – uisge beatha, the ʻwater of life’ in Gaelic – has been produced in Scotland since the fifteenth century, but only really took off after the 1780 tax on claret made wine too expensive for most people. The taxman soon caught up with whisky, however, and drove the stills underground. Today, many distilleries operate on the site of simple cottages that once distilled the stuff illegally.

Despite the dominance of blended whiskies such as Johnnie Walker, Bell’s, Teacher’s and The Famous Grouse, single malt whisky is infinitely superior and, as a result, a great deal more expensive. Single malts vary in character enormously depending on the amount of peat used for drying the barley, the water used for mashing and the type of oak cask used in the maturing process. Malt whisky is best drunk with a splash of water to release its distinctive flavours. The greatest concentrations of distilleries are on Speyside and on Islay (whose whiskies are renowned for their smoky character), though there are distilleries popping up all over the place.

Beer

Traditional Scottish beer is a thick dark ale known as heavy, served at room temperature in pints or half-pints, with a full head. Quite different in taste from English ‘bitter’, heavy is a more robust, sweeter beer with less of an edge. All of the big-name breweries – McEwan’s, Tennent’s and Belhaven – produce a reasonable selection of heavies. However, if you really want to discover Scottish beer, look out for the products of small local breweries such as Cairngorm, Cromarty, the Black Isle, Isle of Arran, Fyne Ales, Isle of Skye, and Orkney. Look out, too, for Fraoch, available mostly in bottles, a delicious lighter-coloured ale made from heather according to an ancient recipe. The big guns at present, though, are the Aberdeenshire-based BrewDog, which has taken both the Scottish and international markets by storm in recent years with hard-nosed marketing and an ever-expanding range of often eye-wateringly strong concoctions; it now has in excess of fifty bars across Britain.

Water and soft drinks

Scotland produces a prodigious amount of mineral water, much of which is exported – tap water is chill, clean and perfectly palatable in most parts of the country, including the areas of the Highlands and Islands where it’s tinged the color of weak tea by peat in the ground. Locally produced Irn-Bru, a fizzy orange sickly sweet concoction, has been known to outsell Coke and Pepsi in Scotland.