Summer in the city as our Restaurant Power Rankings bring together new challengers and familiar favourites. Here is our updated list of the most talked about, must-visit food places in the city, ready for July. We consider them worthy of your immediate attention.    

1 Rioja

Glasgow Times:

Reservations are now open and the hottest tables in town will be at Rioja from Monday 12 July for the launch of the expanded, two floor restaurant with Miguel Angel Major in the kitchen. The Catalan chef worked at El Bulli under Ferran Adria and was awarded a Michelin star as head chef of Sucede in Valencia. Modern Iberian fine dining in Finnieston is his next challenge.

riojafinnieston.co.uk

2 Vega

Glasgow Times: VegaVega

A bar, restaurant and bowling alley with views from the seventh floor of Yotel Glasgow beside Central Station. Expect casual dining with sharing platters, small plates and bar snack to go alongside boozy shakes and cocktails. There will be a limited opening from 19 July with the venue fully open from 28 July.

vegaglasgow.com

3 Swadish

Glasgow Times: SwadishSwadish

Huge, showstopping smoked kebab grills for a Sunday roast with a difference. Tandoori spiced chicken, Kohlapuri lamb chops and lots of interesting sauces and marinates, served with style at chef Ajay Kumar’s Indian restaurant

swadish.co.uk

4 Tabac

Glasgow Times: TabacTabac

Date night is back, and so is Tabac on Mitchell Lane. Cocktails, pizza and chacuterie sharing boards with a wine bar on the side.

Tabacbar.com

5 The Schoolhouse (New Entry)

Sub Club director Mike Grieve will open a pop-up rooftop bar and restaurant. The 120-seat venue is set to open at The Schoolhouse, an office building in Kinning Park. Background music will be permitted and there will be food by Ramen Dayo. It’s all happening this month.

6 Unalome by Graeme Cheevers (Down Five)

A fantastic launch menu has sent demand for a table in this new restaurant on Kelvingrove Street into overdrive. Enjoy an ambitious standard of fine dining with grilled fillet of North Sea turbot, Orkney scallops and roasted Goosnargh duck.

Unalomebygc.com

7 Moskito (New Entry)

Glasgow Times:

A reinvented bar and restaurant on Bath Street. Look for the Japanese fried chicken with hot honey and salt caramel, dry aged Scottish beef served with Peruvian spices and avocado, Isle of Mull oysters and well fired tiger prawns with harissa. Special mention for the katsu chicken sandwich which brings a great combination of flavours.

moskitoglasgow.com

8 The Duke’s Umbrella (Down Six)

Glasgow’s latest gastropub is a smash hit with chef John Molloy unveiling a series of innovative dishes to go alongside a creative cocktail menu. Go for charcoal grilled langoustines, slow braised ox cheek and seasonal pies. Order the Guinness panna cotta for dessert.

Dukesumbrella.com

9 The Luchador (Down Four)

This South American influenced bar is the latest addition to the food scene on Pollokshaws Road. Enjoy breakfast tacos or spicy egg dishes in the morning with tortillas, chilli and chorizo on the menu in the evening to go with your agave cocktail.

Theluchador.co.uk

10 Salt & Chilli Oriental (Down One)

Chef Jimmy Lee’s pop-up takeaway on Dumbarton Road mixes Hong Kong street food dishes with some spicy Glasgow attitude. They opened in March and have established an enthusiastic following in the West End.

Instagram.com/saltandchilligla

Gregory’s Girl on the Green

A simple moment of movie magic. Teenagers Clare Grogan and John Gordon Sinclair walk across Cumbernauld Park on an awkward first date with summer light fading behind the trees in 1981’s Gregory’s Girl.

Glasgow Times: Dee Hepburn and John Gordon Sinclair in Gregory's Girl

Grogan was spotted by director Bill Forsyth while working as a waitress at the Spaghetti Factory in Glasgow, where Stravaigan is now. Sinclair had been a member of Glasgow’s Youth Theatre. Forty years ago the pair were etched into Scottish pop culture alongside the rest of the cast of the charming film.

It was shown on Monday at Glasgow Green, with summer light fading behind the trees, as part of the Fan Zone Festival that is taking place during Glasgow’s time as a EUFA Euro 2020 host city.

There’s burgers and halloumi fries and pints and coffees. You sit out at allocated picnic benches beside the People’s Palace. The program has included comedy, music, film and performance alongside international football on the big screens.

Events reach a conclusion this weekend with performers gathered by Celtic Connections, a Scottish dance troop, stand-up from Fred MacAulay and Friends, then music from Colonel Mustard & the Dijon 5 before the screening of the Euro final on Sunday.

I covered every blade of grass of Glasgow Green walking during the first and second lockdowns. Our parks help define the city, yet they could offer more. As we continue with the outdoor life, let’s imagine more cinema nights in the park.  

euro2020.scottishfa.co.uk/fan-zone

New York, Glasgow, Gotham

Glasgow Times:

Possible Indiana Jones spoilers ahead. Pictures have been circulating all week as a major movie production has transformed Glasgow into an American city, complete with an abundance of flags, period props and improvised shopfronts.

Look closer and you discover that the sets are intended to depict New York, probably in the late sixties. Indiana Jones 5 director James Mangold tweeted in January “I’m mentally living in 60’s NYC right now cause that’s where all the movies I’m working on take place”. But where does Glasgow fit into the next adventure for Dr Henry Jones Jr?  

Here’s my theory. There’s already been filming in Dumfriesshire with flashback scenes featuring Nazi soldiers that could link back to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - the third film in the franchise and my favourite - or the original Raiders of the Lost Ark.

This fits with the widely shared rumour that Harrison Ford will be facing off against a villain played by Mads Mikkelsen, said to be a Nazi scientist enlisted by NASA to work on the space agency’s moon landing program.

In one of the converted shop windows on Renfield Street, there is currently a “Welcome Home” sign surrounded by red, white and blue rosettes.

With so many American flags positioned in locations, including on City Chambers, it looks like St Vincent Street will stand in for Broadway in Manhattan for scenes set around the Apollo 11 ticker tape homecoming parade that took place on 13 August 1969. Pictures of the real parade show similar road markings to those that have been added to our own streets.

Whatever way our landmarks end up featuring on the silver screen, Glasgow’s summer of film is not over yet. Local businesses tell me that they have been notified about filming for The Batman, set to take place at the end of the month in the city centre. This follows on from initial scenes that were filmed at the Necropolis with Glasgow offering a Gothic image of Gotham City for the new superhero movie starring Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz and Lennoxtown-born actor Alex Ferns.