How easy is it to find vegetarian food in Scotland?

If you're planning a visit to Scotland, you might be wondering how easy it will be to find good vegetarian food. The good news is that you won't starve. Nor will you have to compromise your vegetarian principles just to get a hot meal. Like the rest of the UK, Scotland is, for the most part, vegetarian-friendly. Wherever you travel, the chances are that you'll find an eating place that has at least one veggie option on the menu.

But don't expect to eat like a king. Too often, the available vegetarian dish will be very much a token offering - the poor relation on the menu. It might be nothing more than a boring veggie burger, a microwaved dish of lasagne, or a green salad which is really meant to be a side dish rather than a complete meal. The phrase "better than nothing" is one that often comes to mind in these cases.

Of course, there are exceptions. Scotland has a growing number of fine eating places, and some of them really take pride in the vegetarian meals they offer. The best of them serve up delicious and nutritious fare, carefully prepared with fresh, local ingredients. I often hear reports of restaurants and hotels that work hard to make vegetarians welcome.

Unfortunately, though, such places are still exceptional, and you will have to go out of your way to find them. (One of the aims of this blog is to help you do just that. I plan to publish readers' recommendations for good veggie eateries, and to write reviews of the most promising.)

Towns and cities

As you would expect, it's Scotland's cities and large towns that offer the best choices for vegetarians. Glasgow and Edinburgh in particular have a number all-vegetarian cafés and restaurants. In Edinburgh, these range from the Engine Shed, an informal self-service café serving low-cost, wholesome lunches, to the more up-market David Bann's, which offers fine dining in an elegant atmosphere. Another good example is Hendersons, a combined salad bar and wine bar that has live folk music and contemporary art to go with the veggie food.

In Glasgow, Mono is a cosy vegan eatery that also has art displays, occasional live music, and its own record shop. Its sister establishment, Stereo, is a vegan pub and tapas bar, also with music and art. And, under the same ownership, 78 is a restaurant and bar where you can enjoy vegan bar meals in front of a roaring open fire.

Both cities also have many restaurants that are not completely vegetarian, but whose menus sport a good choice of  meat-free dishes. Away from the big cities, all-veggie eateries are less common, but a few good ones exist. I'll review the best of these on the blog over the coming months.

Indian and Italian

When looking for eating places that serves veggie meals, Indian restaurants are always a good prospect. Almost every town in the country has at least one Indian eatery. And although the cuisine can best be described as variable, most of them do offer a useful range of meat-free dishes.

Another type of restaurant that's worth looking for is Italian. Most Italian restaurants serve a range of vegetarian pizzas and pasta dishes. That's especially true of the national chains. Pizza Express, for example, is regarded as the best UK pizza chain - rightly so, in my experience - and they are scrupulous in the ingredients they use in their veggie dishes. The chain has about 15 outlets in Scotland, including in Inverness, Aberdeen, Perth and St. Andrews.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Scotland is a vegetarian's paradise. After all, its culinary reputation is firmly based on venison, beef, fish and the like. But at least you can travel the country, confident that you will get some sort of veggie meal at the end of the day. If nothing else, you won't be regarded as a crank or a freak when you ask for a meat-free dish - and that's more than I can say for many other European countries.

Do you know of any particularly good Scottish vegetarian cafés, pubs, restaurants, hotels or B&Bs? If so, please share your recommendations with other readers. To find out how, see Submit a recommendation or review.