Glasgow, GB

The restaurant that set the template for modern Glasgow dining: a buzzy open-kitchen room of seasonal Mediterranean small plates built for sharing. It holds a Bib Gourmand and is still where locals take visiting friends for a long, sociable dinner.

Glasgow's Michelin-starred fine-dining room on Great Western Road, serving a tasting-menu showcase of Scottish produce in a calm, grown-up West End space. This is the special-occasion booking locals save for.

A tiny, tile-and-zinc seafood bar that has anchored the Finnieston strip since 2009, doing simple things to scallops, oysters and crab. The fish supper and the crab cakes are the orders that built its reputation.

A light-filled Argyle Street dining room cooking wood-fired, Ottolenghi-lineage Mediterranean food that changes with the seasons. The pillowy focaccia has its own following; the rest is built for family-style sharing.

A West End basement that has run on a think-global-eat-local credo for decades, sliding from haggis to nasi goreng on one menu. The street-level bar does one of the city's better-loved burgers and brunches.

A handsome, theatrical city-centre dining room from the Ox and Finch group, doing snacks, small plates and fire-cooked sharing dishes under a Bib Gourmand. The cocktails get as much attention as the food.

A neighbourhood Dennistoun restaurant where a chef trained at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay does ambitious, set-menu cooking in a relaxed room. It pulls off high-end technique without the white-tablecloth stiffness.

A big, plant-filled Botanic Gardens room serving Southeast Asian small plates with Scottish produce, holding a Bib Gourmand. The fried chicken and the curries are what regulars come back for.

An intimate Partick room with a daily-changing menu of seasonal small plates, leaning on local produce and global technique. It is the kind of place regulars trust completely because the kitchen rewrites the menu constantly.

The West End institution that has shaped how Glasgow eats Indian food since the 1990s, spread across a warren of townhouse rooms near Kelvingrove. Generous, home-style cooking that locals default to without a second thought.

Scotland's first dedicated South Indian restaurant, an upstairs Merchant City room specialising in dosas, idli and Chettinad dishes you rarely see elsewhere in the city. A genuinely different plate from the usual curry-house template.

A sleek Merchant City room doing modern Indian cooking that plates seasonal Scottish produce with regional Indian technique. The most refined Indian dining in the city, and a notch up from the West End curry houses.

A bustling West End deli-restaurant from a family that has fed Glasgow Italian food for four decades, with a counter of imported goods and a kitchen turning out fresh pasta and Neapolitan-style plates. Equally good for a long lunch or a deli raid.

A loud, fast, wood-fired Neapolitan pizzeria where blistered, soft-crust pies come cheap and the queue moves quickly. The Great Western Road room is the West End counterpart to the city-centre original.

A deli, bakery and trattoria rolled into one, run by a long-standing Glasgow-Italian family, with a counter of cured meats and cheeses out front and a full kitchen behind. The Partick branch is the relaxed, neighbourhood one.

A no-frills Finnieston pizzeria turning out proper Neapolitan pies and a short list of Italian classics, run by Italians who keep it simple. The kind of unshowy spot locals quietly rate above the bigger names.

A city-centre Mexican kitchen and bar leaning on imported ingredients and a deep agave list, with tacos and a long mezcal-and-tequila selection. The most authentic Mexican cooking in a city where the bar is otherwise low.

A fully vegan cafe-bar in the Merchant City with a record shop built into the room and a long-running live-music programme. The vegan fish and chips and the pizza crunch are local legends, and the beer list is serious.

A tiny, family-run Southside canteen serving home-style vegetarian Punjabi food, much of it from old family recipes. Counter-style and unpretentious, it is regularly named the best vegetarian Indian in the city.

A relaxed Broomhill neighbourhood bistro doing flexible all-day Scottish cooking, the revival of a long-loved local favourite. It draws a devoted West End crowd for unhurried brunches and lunches.

The Shawlands brunch spot locals queue for, doing inventive, beautifully plated weekend plates and proper coffee. The fact that it has no reservations and still pulls a line tells you what the Southside thinks of it.

A bright, all-day Garnethill bakehouse-cafe near the art-school district, big on house-baked goods, full Scottish breakfasts and strong gluten-free and vegan ranges. A reliable, generous brunch close to the city centre.

A Merchant City coffee shop with a wartime-aviation theme, model planes overhead and 1950s rock on the speakers, doing well-made coffee and a tight breakfast and lunch menu. A characterful daytime stop near the Trongate.

A pocket-sized Gordon Street coffee bar a step from Central Station, doing properly sourced coffee, good eggs and well-made sandwiches at fair prices. The local go-to for a quick, done-right breakfast before a train.

The West End's Victorian riverside park, a flat loop along the River Kelvin past the art gallery, a bandstand and a war memorial. The easy go-to walk for a between-museums stroll or a morning run.

Gentle paths through the West End gardens and down a wooded bank to the River Kelvin, with the Kibble Palace glasshouse as the centrepiece. Short, easy and pram-friendly, with a hidden ruined railway station as the surprise.

Glasgow's largest green space on the Southside, with miles of woodland and riverside trails, a fold of Highland cattle and the Burrell Collection in the middle. The trails range from flat riverside loops to longer woodland circuits.

A sprawling country park north of the city near Milngavie, with two castle ruins, lochs, moorland and a web of waymarked trails. Big enough for a proper half-day, with routes from short loops to several-mile circuits.

The highest point in Glasgow, a Southside ridge of grassland and woodland rising to over 200 metres with a panorama across the whole city to the Campsies and Ben Lomond. A moderate hill walk that pays off fast.

A Southside country park strung around two reservoirs, with smooth, level paths good for buggies and bikes as well as a longer reservoir circuit. Easy, watery and quiet, on the city's south-west edge.

Europe's largest onshore wind farm on Eaglesham Moor south of the city, laced with wide gravel tracks open to walkers, runners and cyclists beneath the turning turbines. Big-sky, open-moor walking on flat, well-surfaced paths.

A wooded escarpment above Paisley, south-west of the city, with waterfalls, reservoirs and ridge paths that open onto views back over the Clyde valley. Routes run from gentle glen walks to a longer, hillier circuit.

A sharp little hill above Balmaha on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, where a steep but short climb delivers the classic view down the island-studded loch. The day-trip walk that gives you the Highlands in an afternoon.

A volcanic plug at the western end of the Campsie Fells, a steep, direct grunt up to a small summit with wide views over the Blane valley and Loch Lomond hills. A proper short, sharp hill walk just north of the city.

The opening stage of Scotland's most famous long-distance trail, leaving Milngavie through Mugdock and open countryside toward Drymen near Loch Lomond. A full-day walk on good paths that eases you out of the city and into the Highlands.

The city's flagship free museum, a Victorian palace whose 22 galleries mix fine art with a Spitfire, natural history and Mackintosh design. The rainy-day default that families and art lovers both happily lose hours in.

A UK Museum of the Year winner in the woods of Pollok Park, showing one collector's eclectic span of tapestries, ceramics, stained glass and Impressionist paintings in a glass pavilion. Indoor culture wrapped in a forest setting.

A free, family-magnet transport museum on the Clyde with trams, cars and a recreated cobbled street of old shops, plus the Tall Ship moored outside. The most kid-friendly of the big museums and a reliable rainy-day winner.

Glasgow's contemporary-art gallery in a grand neoclassical building on Royal Exchange Square, as famous for the traffic-cone-topped Duke of Wellington statue out front as for the shows inside. Free, central and quick to dip into.

The 300-capacity St Vincent Street club where Oasis were signed in 1993, still a working launchpad for new bands night after night. The small, sweaty, real-deal Glasgow gig experience.

A 1934 East End dance hall above the Barras market, with a neon sign, a sprung wooden floor and a reputation among touring musicians as one of the best rooms in the world. The big-night-out live-music venue every Glaswegian has a story about.

A converted industrial yard in Finnieston that has become the city's most flexible arts and music complex, hosting club nights, live gigs, street-art festivals and food markets across warehouse spaces and a yard. The forward-looking, anything-goes cultural hub.

The oldest surviving music hall in the world, a faded Trongate gem where Stan Laurel made his stage debut, run by volunteers who stage variety nights and tours. A genuinely unusual slice of theatrical history.

A vast former tram depot on the Southside turned international contemporary-arts venue, with cavernous gallery halls, a theatre and the Hidden Gardens behind it. Big, ambitious shows in raw industrial spaces.

Glasgow's first dedicated single-malt distillery in over a century, in a glass-fronted former pump house on the river between the SEC and the Riverside Museum. Tours walk you from mash to a riverside tasting.

An intimate Woodlands basement comedy club running stand-up most nights, from open-mic newcomers to touring names. The reliable adult night-out where the low ceiling keeps every set close and sharp.

A craft brewery and bar-restaurant beside the Tennent's plant near the Necropolis, with tanks visible behind glass, a wide tap list and a beer-hall feel. Brewery tours plus a proper kitchen make it an easy afternoon-into-evening.

A historic Gorbals producing theatre with a restored Victorian auditorium, known for bold, often radical drama and a strong community programme. The Southside's flagship stage for serious theatre.

The city's grand main lyric theatre and home of Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet, with a gilded Victorian auditorium behind a modern glass foyer. The dress-up-and-go-out venue for opera, ballet and big touring shows.

Scotland's only mainland medieval cathedral to survive the Reformation intact, built over the tomb of Saint Mungo. The dark, vaulted lower church beneath the choir is the part that stops people in their tracks.

A Victorian garden cemetery on a hill behind the Cathedral, with 3,500 monuments to the merchants and shipbuilders who built the city. It is more open-air sculpture park than spooky graveyard, and the climb pays off with a skyline panorama.

A Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald design from a 1901 competition that was only built in the 1990s, set in Bellahouston Park on the Southside. The Music Room and Oval Room show the Mackintosh style at full stretch.

A time-capsule first-floor flat where Agnes Toward lived from 1911 and changed almost nothing for fifty years, gas lamps, box bed and stocked larder included. It is the single best way to understand how most Glaswegians actually lived.

The city's oldest public park, a flat green wedge by the Clyde in the East End with the Doulton Fountain, the People's Palace winter gardens and the West Brewery in the old carpet factory. This is where Glaswegians have marched, protested and picnicked for centuries.

An Edwardian country house inside Pollok Country Park, holding one of Britain's best collections of Spanish art including El Greco and Goya, plus a below-stairs servants' wing. The setting among the Highland cattle and woodland is half the visit.

The oldest house in Glasgow, a 1471 medieval survivor opposite the Cathedral, furnished to show life around 1500 to 1700. The St Nicholas physic garden behind it, planted with medieval medicinal herbs, is the quiet surprise.

A 175-foot cantilever crane on the Clyde that once loaded locomotives onto ships, now a floodlit monument to the city's shipbuilding era. It anchors the riverside walk past the Armadillo and the Hydro arena.

A cobbled West End back lane strung with fairy lights and packed with bars, the Ubiquitous Chip and a tiny independent cinema. It is touristy by Glasgow standards but still where students and locals end up on a night out.