Photo of
November 30, 2017
5pm Festive Dining
The Tiki Bar and Kitsch Inn can put a different spin on your festive eating out plans. Pic: [Facebook][1].

Celebrating the season with a great meal need not break the bank. You can eat out on a budget with 5pm Festive Dining safe in the knowledge that you won’t be facing a diet of beans on toast before the next pay day.

We all like to eat well without emptying the bank account. Here are nine Glasgow restaurants with keenly priced menus to enjoy over the festive season.

We searched 5pm Festive Dining for reasonable restaurants offering two courses for £16 or less per head.

5pm Festive Dining is fully searchable

At the time of writing, they were all available for a two person booking on Thursday 7th December. Deals change and availability gets booked up.

Remember, you can search 5pm Festive Dining for a date of your choice and a price band that suits your budget.

Affordable restaurants. Eating out on a budget. Culinary good times without financial hard times?

We got you:

Two Fat Ladies at the Shandon Belles

5pm Festive Dining
Two Fat Ladies at The Shandon Belles: reasonably priced festive dining.

Sitting in a quiet residential part of Glasgow’s Argyle Street, on the western side of the M8, The Shandon Belles is a cosy little bistro. Part of the Two Fats family, it nestles below Two Fat Ladies at The Buttery.

Exposed stone, stained glass features and walls lined with curios make for a warm, inviting and quirky space. The decor has more homely charm than the grand, historic setting of the upstairs restaurant. However, The Shandon Belles has the same emphasis on thoughtful cooking using top quality ingredients.

Book in via 5pm Dining and you can enjoy two courses from the Christmas menu plus a glass of wine for £16 a head. Available noon to 3pm and 5pm to 10pm.

Main course options include traditional roast turkey and all the trimmings; beef Bourguignon with braised rice and grilled coley with beetroot mash and a citrus white wine cream.

Madha

5pm Festive Dining
Madha offers a keenly priced two course meal for anyone keen to swerve the turkey.

Madha is a contemporary Indian and Pakistani restaurant on Albion Street in the heart of Glasgow’s Merchant City. The bright, open dining room looks onto the street. A larger dining space is tucked away beyond the bar.

Opened in the summer of 2017, Madha is pleasingly different from traditional Anglo-Indian restaurants. It offers an intriguing range of dishes which would not look out of place in Jaipur or Kochi. The menu is adaptable to any dietary requirement and even offers vegan wines, if required.

Madha’s menu does feature familiar dishes such as tandoori chicken, veg samosa and lamb rogan josh. However, if you want to explore further away from the best known dishes, Madha will intrigue. From roast duck in a peppery, spice gravy to southern Indian dosa and idli cakes, Madha provides choices unlikely to be found in other Indian restaurants in Glasgow. Naturally, the staff will happily guide diners who are dithering between the sweet corn and spinach shorba or the pan-fried baby squid in aromatic spices and tapioca. If chicken tikka masala no longer cuts the mustard for you, Madha has plenty of more exotic alternatives to try.

Book into Madha with 5pm Festive Dining and £14 will buy you two courses from the main menu plus a side dish. Available from noon to 9pm.

Boteco do Brasil

5pm Festive Dining
Brazilian warmth in a Glaswegian winter? You need Boteco do Brasil.

Boteco Do Brasil is a vibrant restaurant and bar that brings a taste of Brazil to Glasgow. Located on Trongate in Merchant City, Boteco Do Brasil provides guests with traditional, home-style Brazilian food and exotic cocktails.

At lunch, you can enjoy two courses from the Christmas set menu plus a glass of Prosecco for £14.95 when you book in via 5pm Dining.

Main course options include a Brazilian lamb stew, oven-baked salmon steak and our old friend turkey with all the trimmings.

Horn Please

5pm Festive Dining
Horn Please for fusion tapas.

Named after the stickers which are often found on Indian trucks, Horn Please is a contemporary Indian street food restaurant on Elderslie Street. It occupies a surprisingly light and bright basement space which is filled with Indian curios. Rattan furniture; Indian newspaper used as wall paper; a Thumbs Up cola mural and a vintage water pump all add to an enjoyably quirky atmosphere.

Horn Please delivers an intriguing menu which mixes traditional Indian street food with contemporary tapas to create its own culinary fusion. For diners who want to get off the most well worn Anglo-Indian culinary highways, Horn Please offers several colourful diversions.

Dishes like the mini dosas stuffed with bottle gourd and yellow lentil curry would not seem out of place in an Indian truck stop. More adventurous combos – like the spice-seared haggis with fennel and mango chutney salad – would be more likely to raise eyebrows.

Alongside the meat and seafood sections, Horn Please provides plenty of exciting veggie options. Dishes like the gram flour yoghurt curry with fried rice and crunchy masala okra ensure that Horn Please will always be a culinary adventure.

Use 5pm Festive Dining to book into Horn Please and you can tuck into three tapas from the a la carte menu plus a premium gin and tonic for £16. Available 5pm to 10pm.

La Rotunda

5pm Festive Dining
La Rotunda: festive dining without breaking the bank.

La Rotunda is an Italian restaurant on the ground floor of the iconic Rotunda complex. It is perfectly positioned next to Scotland’s entertainment hub with the SECC, Clyde Auditorium and the Hydro all next door.

From the open kitchen, La Rotunda serves up a traditional menu with a contemporary twist. The house specialities include mouth watering stone-baked pizzas and fresh Scottish seafood done in a simple Italian style. Using a mix of locally sourced produce and carefully selected speciality Italian ingredients, it offers a wide variety of Italian dishes served by its warm and friendly staff.

With 5pm Dining, you can book in and tuck in to a three course Christmas lunch for £15.95. We fancy the Parma ham pizza but could be easily swayed by the herb-crusted salmon fillet with a white wine and spinach sauce.

Tiki Bar and Kitsch Inn

5pm Festive Dining
The Tiki Bar and Kitsch Inn: bringing the Pacific Rim to Bath Street.

Sitting pretty on Bath Street, Tiki Bar & Kitsch Inn offers tasty Thai food in the upstairs Kitsch Inn. In the downstairs Tiki Bar, guests come for the tropical cocktails and beach hut setting.

Why go here for your festive feasting? Because, let’s face it, there is nothing quite like winter in Glasgow to make you wish that you were on a beach in the Pacific.

The dinner menu is packed with main courses such as the hot and rustic jungle curry; a rendang or dry-style Indonesian curry and the aptly named pla tod yum. The latter is a crispy fillet of coley dressed with fresh mango and cashew nuts in a roasted chilli, lime and lemongrass sauce.

Book in with 5pm and each diner can order up two courses from the dinner menu for £14.

Atlantic Brasserie

5pm Festive Dining
Atlantic Bar and Brasserie: specialists in rotisserie chicken and much more.

Located on St Vincent Place, Atlantic Bar and Brasserie is a contemporary French brasserie and bar with a sophisticated and glamorous vintage setting. It sits on the lower ground floor, underneath sister restaurant The Anchor Line. Atlantic’s striking looks were inspired by an early Glasgow pop-up restaurant which was built for the Empire Exhibition of 1938,

With a full rotisserie and Robata grill, there is always plenty of theatre in Atlantic’s open kitchens.

The set menu includes dishes like the spit-roasted half chicken; warming beef Bourguignon stews; gnocchi stuffed with sautéed beetroot and goat’s cheese and a ragout of pearl barley cooked with white wine, shallots, garlic, butternut squash, spinach and sun-blushed tomatoes.

5pm Festive Dining means you can enjoy two courses from the set menu for £15.95 at the Atlantic Bar and Brasserie. Available from noon to 9.30pm.

Loks Bar and Kitchen

5pm Festive Dining
Loks Bar and Kitchen: offers seasonal cheer in Shawlands.

Loks Bar & Kitchen can be found on Newlandsfield Road in Glasgow’s Shawlands. A family-run bar with a separate restaurant, it offers comfortable, contemporary decor. A wide range of craft beers, cocktails and wines keep thirst at bay. And the wood-burning stove means everyone is toasty during the more chilly months.

The chefs at Loks Bar & Kitchen like to use as much local produce as possible and do all the baking in-house.

Choices on the festive lunch menu include braised Scotch beef brisket; slow-cooked pork loin with apple and white truffle purée plus turkey with sage and onion stuffing. The last of these

comes wrapped in Parma ham with duck fat roast potatoes and red wine gravy.

The festive lunch menu is keenly priced at £14.95 for two courses. Book in with 5pm Dining.

Alston Bar & Beef

5pm Festive Dining
Alston Bar & Beef: find your ho ho ho under Central Station.

Tucked away under Glasgow’s Central Station and entered via the station’s Gordon Street entrance, Alston Bar & Beef is an atmospheric Scottish restaurant and gin bar. Built over the site of the 19th century Alston Street, the restaurant’s quirky decor features tiled vaults, huge mirrors and lights made with decanters. Guests seek out Alston Bar & Beef for its selection of intriguing cocktails and some 50 gins, around a dozen of which are Scottish.

As well as a Tweed Valley bavette steak frites, the set menu includes pan-fried bream; Parmesan-crusted chicken and a grilled vegetable linguine with a black olive and tomato sauce.

Two courses from the set menu cost £13 when booking via 5pm Festive Dining. Available noon to 6.30pm.