Ox and Finch

Creative, confident cooking at this informal Finnieston diner, with small sharing plates that have earned the place a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

The 2017 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £5.95 (+p&p).

Ox and Finch’s location on Sauchiehall Street, slightly removed from the increasingly restaurant-dense Argyle Street Finnieston strip, makes for a handy geographical analogy of how confidently it sits apart from the crowd. With its stripped-back original corniced ceiling, tight leather-clad booths and black tiled walls, it’s hip without feeling try-hard. Smart sharing dishes pack champion featherweight punch and don’t fail to satisfy, time and time again. After settling in with one of their new seasonal cocktails, start with four or five plates between two diners and leave room for manoeuvre – you might feel like ordering some of the best ones again. With food arriving as its ready, it’s like dining on playlist shuffle. Buffalo mozzarella, pear, mint, prosciutto and eight year-aged balsamic is bursting with contrasting textures and flavours. Squid, morcilla, Serrano ham and salmojero has earthy Mediterranean flourish, while moreish game sausage with light, fluffy, buttery balls of gnocchi and butternut squash is simply exquisite. You’ll definitely want to leave room for dessert – especially the coffee and praline millefeuille, a superior breed of pastry which looks like it’s been chucked together in a rush yet tastes anything but.

• High point: They take service as seriously as they take their food
• Low point: Advance booking of at least a couple of weeks is always recommended
• Notable dish: Buffalo mozzarella, pear, mint, prosciutto and eight year-aged balsamic

Listed in the Glasgow Larder – order a print copy (free + p&p).

Straight up fresh natural ingredients, creativity and precision in flavours and textures of all elements has earned, Ox and Finch a Michelin ‘Bib Gourmand’ star for good value food – one of only three held in Glasgow. This unpretentious place is buzzing with open kitchen and bar exuding efficiency through to the chattering diners cooing over sharing plates. Packed utilitarian style shelves tagged with an array of regional continental wines reinforce provenance all the way to the wide choice of craft beers, ales and cider. Scanning the placemat menu (noticeably free of fluffy descriptions) it’s hard to resist wanting it all in one sitting. Dishes speak for themselves. Apple-cured mackerel is exquisite and sensitively balanced in flavours accompanied by wasabi yoghurt and spiced granny smith. Colours are important too – salt and pepper squid with blood orange, chiili and saffron aioli is sunshine captured. Oh my! Lemon and earl grey baked alaska is like diving headfirst into a big cloud of squishy meringue and finding subtle citrus treasures with every spoonful. Decadent flavour depth unfolds in the layered torte – zingy blackcurrant and bitter dark chocolate the ideal bedfellows for silky smooth honeycomb ice-cream and scattering of crunch sweet cornflakes.