Food & Drink Survey 2014: Best Newcomers, Scotland

We look back at 2013, to see where some of your favourite new places slotted into a year of new popes, powerful babies, and giant rubber ducks

Feature by Peter Simpson | 06 Jan 2014

After a quiet few months, save for last year’s edition of your favourite readers’ food and drink survey, 2013 kicked into action in March. The world got a selfie-taking, Harley-riding new Pope, and Edinburgh got a top-notch new gastropub. The Vintage opened its doors in March, and has been going great guns with its cracking craft beer range and top-drawer food ever since. The Pope is also, we hear, doing a decent job (cc selfies, riding Harley Davidsons).

Fast forward to May, and the world’s largest rubber duck was in the middle of one of the greatest world tours of our time. Fittingly, The Squid and Whale opened on Glasgow’s Great Western Road in May, bringing a natty nautical theme to the West End along with some cracking Mexican and American food. Good timing, giant rubber duck!

In June, we learned that the ‘NSA’ had been using a ‘PRISM’ to read all our ‘Facebook’ posts. At just that moment, a bang-on-trend burger place with a slick interior and oh-so-cute cartoon mascots turned up. We know that Burger Meats Bun in Glasgow city centre wasn’t party to the mass surveillance of our emails and social networks (if they were, they’ve kept it under their hats very well), but the simple brilliance of the food and the cosy space feel as though they’ve been plucked direct from our fevered, data-addled minds. 

July was a busy month. Fans of aristocracy and media over-reaction were treated to a new Royal Baby and the attendant 24-hour news coverage of a human child being born of a human mother in - of all places - a hospital. Those who felt the coverage of their future king was a bit gratuitous wouldn’t stop going on about the made-for-TV sci-fi shambles Sharknado. It was very warm, and we all needed to cool down. Enter Mary’s Milk Bar on Edinburgh’s Grassmarket, with an ever-changing menu of hand-made gelato and milkshakes to choose from, and a quirky space to enjoy them in.

So that’s what we added in 2013 – spying, ducks, gelato, beer, babies, squid, and cute little cartoon characters. Well played, 2013, well played.