Glasgow and Edinburgh food news: wave the flag for the Great British Gin Festival at the Barrowlands. Pic: Facebook.

The weekend is so close we can almost taste it. Here is the tastiest food news from Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Starting with Glasgow, gin-lovers will want to mosey along to the Barrowlands tomorrow for the Great British Gin Festival.

Billed as the 'UK's biggest gin festival', it promises that visitors will have their taste buds tantalised by more than a hundred different gins from around the world.

Along with all the samples, talks and master classes you might expect, the event will also feature a virtual reality gin distillery.

Obviously, virtual gin is all well and good but real gin is a lot better so...

All the bars operate on a token system at £5 a token. One token will buy you a measure of gin, an appropriate garnish, and premium tonic.

At the time of writing, there were still some tickets left for the evening session.

Edinburgh food news

In Edinburgh, Summerhall is hosting its annual FestivALE this weekend.

Starting today, the two day beer festival will take place in Summerhall's courtyard. As well as lots of Barney's beer, there will be gin from Summerhall's other resident booze creators: Pickering's Gin.

Of course, there will also be oodles of beers - and other drinks - from other interesting brewers.

There will also be the Massaoke Jukebox, a human jukebox; pub quizzes and the Dart of Destiny - a boon for those unsure of what tipple to try next.

We like the sound of the Crisp Confessional - a personal crisp pairing service.

Who doesn’t want to know what beer goes best with a cheese and onion crisp or, if you must, a scampi fry?

Little Chartroom open

At the opposite end of the culinary spectrum from a bag of salt and vinegar, this is the first weekend of business for The Little Chartroom.

You may recall, that we blogged about it way back in April.

To recap, Roberta Hall-McCarron and Shaun McCarron first met when Roberta was working in the kitchen at and Shaun was front of house at the much lauded Castle Terrace.

Several adventures later, they have launched The Little Chartroom on Albert Place, at the top of Edinburgh’s Leith Walk.

The menus are here.

From the dinner menu, we like the sound of the chicken breast and leg with anchovy and crème fraîche potatoes plus hispi cabbage.

Last but not least, this week saw the launch of Elio's.

The new venture is housed in the George Street basement premises that were previously home to Maddogs.

Madogs launched long before this correspondent could legally order a drink in a bar. Even in his native Dundee.

In fact, we think it was around for the best part of forty years. Which is approximately two millennium in bar years.

Anyway, while Madogs has gone to the great kennel in the sky, Elio's promises top tunes, fab cocktails and great grub.

The kitchen doesn't open until next month but we will fill you in with all the info when it does.

Enjoy the weekend.