It is no secret Scotland is home to a myriad of excellent restaurants with warm hospitality and even greater food. And now, Scotland is officially home to some of the UK’s best restaurants: Two-Michelin Star restaurant Andrew Fairlie at The Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire has been recognised as Scotland’s top restaurant on the Harden’s Top 100 list, a leading annual diners poll.
What is more, Scottish restaurants claimed four spots in the UK’s top 100 list in 2025, instead of a whopping eight in 2023. 2023 was possibly the best year for Scotland in general, as Restaurant Andrew Fairlie was ranked as the best restaurant in the UK, yet in 2025 the restaurant took the 15th spot on the list. Still, the spot is known as the best in Scotland!
A four Scottish restaurants made it into the list, with Glasgow’s Cail Bruich ranking 40th this time and Unalome by Graeme Cheevers taking the 43rd spot. This year, The Kitchin in Edinburgh ranked at 81st place in the UK.
The world-famous Andrew Fairlie restaurant echoed praises such as ‘a memory to be treasured’, and shot to the top spot for its luxurious ingredients prepared with ‘impeccable skill and creativity’ and attentive staff who are ‘knowledgeable in all respects’.
The Harden’s list is basically one of the only lists of its kind in the UK, where ordinary people like you and I rate the best restaurants, instead of professional inspectors. A total of 30,000 reports are submitted from a survey of 3,000 diners, and you can find that restaurants at all price levels are listed and rated: from street food vendors to the country’s most ambitious dining rooms, with a whopping 2,800 restaurants listed in total.
Peter Harden, co-founder of Harden’s, comments:
“Andrew Fairlie may no longer be with us, but his legacy is in good hands and lives on” at this famous dining room bearing his name, where chef Stephen McLaughlin (who worked with Andrew for 26 years before the latter passed away) creates what many diners consider to be Scotland’s finest cuisine (“there’s no getting away from the fact that this has to be up there with the best gastronomic experience we have ever experienced”), with “each fabulous course a testament to the skill of the kitchen brigade.”
GM Dale Dewsbury presides over “a team of the loveliest people” who breathe life into this elegant (if windowless) chamber at the heart of this famous property.”