Eating in St. Andrews

There are a lot of great restaurants in St. Andrews, from fine dining all the way down to a Subway sandwich shop. One of my favorites and a consistently good place is The Vine Leaf. Run by Ian and his wife Morag, they specialize in local fare. They have a two course meal for 25 pounds or a three course meal for 27. Unfortunately with the current exchange rate that is not a deal, but usually it is for the quality of food you get. There are 5-6 choices each for meat, seafood and vegetarian starters and entrees. I had the haggis as a starter and the Dover sole as an entree and they were both fantastic. This is one of the few places you can still get consistently good haggis. The desert choices looked great, but unfortunately we were unable to tackle them.

There are also several great ethnic food restaurants in town. Two of my favorites are Nahn Jim and the Balaka. Nahm Jim is a great Thai place that has also added sushi. We stuck to the Thai food and had a great meal that was not too expensive. The sushi is a little spendy, so we did not order any, even though it looked great. The Balaka is one of the best Indian food places in Scotland. They have a large menu of Bangladeshi style curries and all he other Indian favorites. The one drawback is that it can get loud if you eat late.

The Doll's House, The Grill House and The Glass House are all owned by the same folks. They along with Littlejohns all offer good lunch and dinner fare at reasonable prices. They have salads, soups, wraps, fish, etc. and The Grill House even has a few "Mexican" items that are pretty good as long as you don't compare them to any Mexican restaurant in the U.S.

On the lower end of the price range there are several pubs that offer good lunches and dinners. First among them is The Dunvegan which has the best burger in town and a good steak and The Central which has a daily pie special (meat not fruit). If you are ready to get really Scottish, there is the fry bar - where you guessed it everything is fried. I would recommend the Kinness Fry Bar or closer in theres Peter Michael's. You can get your fish and chips, blood pudding, or a deep fried Mars bar. All good eating.

There are also several really nice places that a short drive away, however I have focused here on the ones you can easily walk to in town.