Pub restaurants in Scotland
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Ferry Boat Inn
Known as the FBI, this character-laden waterfront inn is a little less traditional looking these days with its bleached wood and nonstained carpet, but it’s still the place where locals and visitors mingle. Some dishes on the menu are a little bland, but a well-run dining room, quality ingredients and great presentation compensate.
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Bar 91
By day this happy, buzzy bar serves excellent meals, far better than your average pub food. Salads, pasta and burgers are among the many tasty offerings, and in summer tables spill out onto the sidewalk – ideal for some people-watching.
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Moulin Hotel
A mile away but a world apart, this atmospheric hotel was trading centuries before the tartan tack came to Pitlochry. With its romantic low ceilings, ageing wood and booth seating, the inn is a wonderfully atmospheric spot for a house-brewed ale or a portion of Highland comfort food: try the filling haggis or venison stew. A more formal restaurant (mains £12 to £16) serves equally delicious traditional fare, with excellent game and meat options. The hotel also has a variety of rooms (single/double £62/77) as well as a self-catering annexe. The best way to get here from Pitlochry is walking: it’s a pretty uphill stroll through green fields, and an easy roll down the slope…
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Arch Inn
There's pleasing pub food to be had at this shorefront establishment, where the cosy bar and restaurant area dishes up generously proportioned stews, steaks and fish and chips, as well as a couple of more advanced seafood plates. The outdoor tables right beside the lapping water are a top spot for a pint.
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Cavens Arms
Engaging staff, ten real ales on tap, and a warm contented buzz make this a legendary Dumfries pub. Generous portions of typical pub nosh backed up by a long list of more adventurous daily specials make it one of the town’s most enjoyable places to eat too. If you were going to move to Dumfries, you’d make sure you were within a block or two of here.
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Forth Inn
In the middle of the village, the solid Forth Inn is the lifeblood of the town, with locals and visitors alike queuing up for good, honest pub fare; the best bar meal in Aberfoyle. It also provides accommodation and beer, with drinkers spilling outside into the sunny courtyard. Single (£55) and double (£80 to £90) rooms are available, but they can be noisy at weekends.
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Ferry Inn
Near the ferry dock in Scrabster, this traditional stone pub has rather ugly extensions, but these house the busy restaurant. It specialises in steaks – pick your size – and local haddock. We reckon it’s a tad overpriced but the evening view over the harbour is great. Cheaper bar meals (£8 to £9) are downstairs, along with a pool table.
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Catacol Bay Hotel
Catacol Bay Hotel Two miles from Lochranza, this bar does great food. The Sunday buffet for £10 (over 60s – £7) is famous, and the cheery service makes you feel like a local. With its snug bar, sunny beer garden, frequent live music and great beers on tap, it’s the best pub on the island.
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Seamus’s Bar
This place dishes up decent bar meals, including haggis, neeps and tatties, steak and ale pie and fish pie, and serves real ales from its own microbrewery. It also has a range of 200 malt whiskies in serried ranks above the bar. As well as the adventure playground outside, there are games, toys and a play area indoors.
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Pierowall Hotel
The heart of this island community, the local pub is famous throughout Orkney for its popular fish and chips – whatever has turned up in the day’s catch by the hotel's boats is displayed on the blackboard. There are also some curries available, but the sea is the way to go here.
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Joseph Pearce’s
A traditional Victorian pub that has been remodeled and given a new lease of life by Swedish owners, Pearce’s has become a real hub of the local community, with good food (very family friendly before 5pm), a relaxed atmosphere, and events like Monday night Scrabble games and summer crayfish parties.
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Drift Inn
There are few better places to be on the island on a sunny day than the beer garden at this child-friendly hotel, ploughing your way through an excellent bar meal while gazing over to Holy Island. There are traditional pub faves and genuine Angus beef burgers, with generous portions all round.
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Lock Inn
A superb little pub right on the canal bank, the Lock Inn has a vast range of malt whiskies and a tempting menu of bar meals, which includes Orkney salmon, Highland venison and daily seafood specials; the house speciality is beer-battered haddock and chips.
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Bothy Bar
In the Albert Hotel, the Bothy looks very smart these days with its modish floor and B&W photos of old-time Orcadian farming, but its low tables provide the customary cheer and sustaining food: think sausages, haddock and stews – good pub grub.
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Dreel Tavern
This charming old pub on the banks of the Dreel Burn has bucketloads of character and serves reliably tasty bar meals. Chow down in the outdoor beer garden in summer. There are also some top-quality cask ales.
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Kings Orchard Brasserie
The Cross Keys Hotel is a renovated 17th-century coaching inn, and the current owners have maintained the tradition of fine hospitality. Kings Orchard Brasserie here knocks together good pub grub, and there's a bar with real ales and live music at weekends.
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Ship Inn
The Ship Inn is a snug, wood-panelled, 19th-century pub on the waterfront, which serves top-notch dishes ranging from gourmet haddock and chips to venison steaks; you can eat in the upstairs restaurant, or down in the bar (bar meals £7 to £10). It's always busy, so get there early to grab a seat.
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Varsity
Attracting the town’s style-cats, this trendy, nouveau bar-café serves cheap food. The décor and furnishings are young at heart, as is the pop music on large TV screens. Pub mains plus hot melts and salads tickle the tastebuds.
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Ship Inn
Ship Inn, down by Elie harbour, is a pleasant and popular place for a bar lunch. The best bit are the outside tables overlooking the wide sweep of the bay.
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Ferry Inn
Every port has its pub, and in Stromness it’s the Ferry. Convivial and central, it warms the cockles with folk music, local beers and characters, and pub food that’s unsophisticated but generously proportioned and good value. At the time of research, you were better sticking to the bar menu rather than the overpriced dinner offerings..
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Loch Tummel Inn
This old coaching inn is a snug spot for a decent feed from a menu ranging from pub classics to more ambitious meat and game dishes. The friendly bar has some good tap choices and is a top spot for a quiet pint at the outdoor tables with a marvellous view over Loch Tummel. The inn is about 3 miles from Queen’s View and also has rooms.
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Hawes Inn
The atmospheric Hawes Inn, famously mentioned in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Kidnapped, serves excellent pub grub; it’s opposite the Inchcolm ferry, right beside the railway bridge.
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No 2 Baker Street
Great pub options with a few innovations, such as wild mushroom Wellington (veggie option) or a Caerphilly cheese and leek burger, or crab and coldwater prawn salad. Excellent selection of real ales on tap.
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Ormidale Hotel
This hotel has decent bar food. Dishes change regularly, but there are always some good vegetarian options, and daily specials. Quantities and value-for-money are high, and Arran beers are on tap.
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Glenisle Hotel
Excellent pub food; serves Scottish classics such as Cullen skink (soup made with smoked haddock, potato, onion and milk). Good wine list.
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