Make Travel Matter Taste Experience
Welcome to Mharsanta, a dining landmark on one of Glasgow’s original streets, offering a menu chosen by heritage and passion with good quality home-cooked cuisine from local suppliers, and featuring a selection of Scottish gin and whisky to complete your dining experience.
We are a family-run independent restaurant on Bell Street, one of the oldest streets in Glasgow.
There were originally only 13 streets in Glasgow until the mid-1700’s. There are now over 6000 so it’s safe to say we’ve grown a fair bit.
Bell Street was one of those early thirteen and it’s part of what we now call the Merchant City area of Glasgow. These days, it is a hub of bars, restaurants and venues but in the 1800s and 1900s it was home to many of the cities wholesale markets selling some of Scotland’s best produce (fruit, vegetables and cheese).
If we go back further to the 1700s, the Merchant City was where the traders, merchants in tobacco, sugar and tea had both their warehouses and their magnificent villas where they displayed their wealth.
We are called Mharsanta Restaurant & Bar.
Mharsanta is Gaelic for merchant.
Gaelic is one of the three languages traditionally spoken in Scotland along with English and Scots. It is particularly strong in the Highlands & Islands, namely the Outer Hebrides & the Isle of Skye.
The Menu
Your menu consists of a variety of top Scottish produce from fresh fish & shellfish to Venison, traditional Haggis, Scottish honey cheesecake & whisky tiramisu.
Starters
Beginning with the starters, a highlight on our menu is the Scottish smoked salmon from the Highland Smoked Salmon company in Fort William.
All our fish/seafood is brought fresh to us daily from our local fish supplier The Fish People.
The north West Coast of Scotland is particularly good for shellfish & fish.
The warm waters of the North Atlantic Drift travel along the West Coast where they meet the cold, pure waters of the Atlantic. These make for nutrient-rich, clean waters which are ideal for producing the very best fish & seafood.
The same can be said of our Shetland Island Mussels that are brought down daily from the Shetland Isle’s who are renowned for clean, fresh waters - perfect for rope-grown mussels.
We are proud to work with Katie Rodger’s Dairy who supply our Crowdie.
The products are all made on Knockraich farm, which has been owned and managed by the Rodger family since 1955.
Knockraich is located in the beautiful Endrick Valley between the Trossachs and the Campsie Fells. At their heart the Rodger family are dairy farmers but in recent generations they have built a fantastic business around enhancing their farm and rural life. The farm is Red Tractor Assured which lets you know the food is traceable, safe to eat and has been produced responsibly. Red Tractor standards cover animal welfare, food safety, traceability and environmental protection.
MacSween’s of Edinburgh Haggis features in a few of our dishes including our Scotch Egg.
MacSween’s is renowned as one of the best traditional Haggis available, with a secret recipe going back decades. Haggis is a favourite amongst Scots & visitors alike – don’t be scared to try it, it’s delicious and not as scary as it sounds!
Main Courses
Moving on to your main courses, we have dishes from the traditional celebratory meal chicken Balmoral – usually eaten on occasions such as St Andrews night, or Burns Night.
This is stuffed with MacSween’s Haggis & served with a Jura 10 whisky sauce. Jura is an Island malt with a slightly saline & smoky quality.
Our Perthshire venison stew is served with Freedom bakery sourdough.
For those of you who have not heard the story behind Freedom bakery, it was established in 2015 as a social enterprise to provide training and employment opportunities for ex-offenders on their release from prison. Not only that, they also have a commitment to baking the very best bread in Glasgow – 10 years on they are now one of Scotland’s most loved bakeries.
Venison might be the lesser known meat when compared to Aberdeen Angus, but here in Scotland is it know as ‘The King of Meats’ & ‘The Meat of Kings’.
We have around a million wild deer in Scotland. Half a million would be a more ecologically sound number so if you happen to be eating this course you are actually helping conserve Scotland’s wildlife, especially our forests!
Desserts
We are proud to work alongside Ed’s Bee’s Honey from Pollokshields who we use for our delicious Honey cheesecake.
Ed has over 400,000 bee’s here in Glasgow with Hive’s on top of some of our highest high-rise flats, to iconic buildings like the Blythswood hotel & the Hydro. The urban environment of Glasgow is a crucial refuge for honeybees who can zip around without the risk of modern agricultural practices. This honey has an everchanging flavour due to the different flowers & blooms available throughout the year.
Our tiramisu features one of Scotland’s most popular single malt whiskies – The Glenfiddich 12 y/o.
This whisky is famous worldwide & has the perfect flavour profile of light orchard fruits such as pears with warm honeyed notes from being finished in oloroso sherry casks.
Thank you for dining with us.
You can find more information about our venues and sustainability policy at www.lomondleisure.co.uk
