The Good Food Guide was forced to suspend publication in March 2020, due to “the pandemic’s shifting blows”.
Now it’s back for its 70th year, under the new ownership of membership network, Code Hospitality, and, alongside the website, their next print edition is in production. They marked this occasion with the online publication of The Platinum List on December 1, to celebrate 18 UK restaurants who opened pre or mid pandemic. These venues will be earmarked to appear in The Good Food Guide 21/22.
There are just two Scottish venues on this list. Eighty Eight in Glasgow, which opened in 2019, and Edinburgh’s Fin & Grape.
“It was pretty unexpected to get this news but we're absolutely delighted to be recognised,” says the Bruntsfield restaurant’s chef patron, Stuart Smith. “There are some really great restaurants included so we feel very proud to be considered alongside them”.
Smith opened his seafood and wine restaurant in 2020, in the middle of lockdown and survived by offering a well considered takeaway offering. His weekend menu of barbecued lobster rolls inspired pandemic queues along Colinton Road last winter. The restaurant is now open for sit in guests at lunch and dinner, with a list of natural wines and small and large sharing plates such as mussels, kohlrabi, radish, cucumber; fillet of plaice, runner beans, peas and lobster bisque, or BBQ cabbage, aged Parmesan, roast chicken dressing.
Smith feels that they’ve stayed open and thrived by being highly adaptable.
“To say that it's been a tough year is certainly an understatement but there's barely been time to think about it too much. We've always just taken things from week to week and tried to focus on the basic goals of making sure our customers leave happy and want to return”, says Smith. “There have been all sorts of challenges along the way, and there will no doubt be more, but being recognised in this way certainly helps the whole team feel like we're on the right track”.
19 Colinton Road, Edinburgh (0131 452 8453, www.finandgrape.com)
