Within the city, The Pot Still is a great place to try a wide range of whiskies, as they stock over 800 of them. The bar also offers private whisky tastings, but they book up fast so be sure to get in touch sooner rather than later. However, if beer is more your thing than whisky, Tennent’s brewery is the perfect place to learn a little more about brewing and taste your way through several different styles of beer. The Glasgow Beer Trail is also a lovely way to plan a visit to a few different breweries in the city. Its sister route, the Glasgow Coffee Trail, is a great way to find the perfect spot for a caffeine hit no matter where you’re based. However, Papercup and Kaf are particularly worth a trip.

If you’re looking for a sweet something to pair with your coffee, Tantrum Doughnuts can be found close to several of Glasgow’s parks. Iain Baillie founded Tantrum Doughnuts alongside his partner Annika in 2015. Although Tantrum Doughnuts now has three locations across Glasgow, when they first started the pair made thousands of doughnuts in a fryer that could only fit fourteen at a time.

‘We had some very long days in that shop’ Iain told me. ‘Doughnuts were something we could produce with minimal investment, as we only had about £300 to play with. So rather than kitting out a full bakery we only needed a couple of household fryers, and a mixer I borrowed from my mum, and we grew it from there.’ While their crème brulée doughnut is their number one best seller, Iain admitted that one of his favourites was a (now discontinued) American Breakfast doughnut with a brown butter maple glaze and candied bacon. ‘It wasn't received too well by everyone, but we still dream about bringing it back one day!’

Five March is another local gem, which opened in 2018. Although not vegan or vegetarian, the restaurant is full of plants of both the decorative and edible variety, and has become known for its seasonal menu, as well as its work to support the local community. Joanna Nethery, the co-owner of Five March, explained to me the origin of the restaurant’s name.

‘Five March is named after a poem by Edwin Morgan 'Glasgow Five March 1971' which isn't as pretty as people expect it to be! Morgan was the first Makar (National Poet) of Scotland and the first Glasgow poet laureate. His work wasn't necessarily easy or charming but he tackled issues that many at the time found uncomfortable and through his writing he brought about political conversation that had a profound influence on social and cultural attitudes. Our name reminds us that Glasgow isn't alway easy but it is always real, and sometimes you need to challenge what those around you consider normal.’

It is a fitting name and story for a restaurant which helps provide hot food at local food banks, and supplies its bread from Freedom Bakery. Freedom Bakery is a local artisan bakery which trains, supports and employs prisoners on day release and ex-offenders, and also supplies other top restaurants around Glasgow like Ox and Finch and the Ubiquitous Finch.

Like Five March, Ox and Finch has a focus on people, but in a slightly different way. Jonathan MacDonald, the managing director at Ox and Finch, spoke to me about how and why they get the whole team involved in designing the menu. ‘One of the things that is very key to the success of all our restaurants,' he explains, 'is that the teams in each kitchen have got a platform to have input into dish creation and new menus and things. We evolve it together and you get so much more buy in because they’re doing something they’re proud to have a hand in creating. That’s the main difference for me between a small restaurant or a small group and a big national chain. People are cooking by numbers with a spreadsheet a bit more.’

I asked him if they ever had any push back against taking certain items off the menu, and he admitted that they had, particularly at Ka Pao, which is managed by the same team as Ox and Finch. ‘The most extreme example of that is we have a fried chicken dish at Ka Pao which is fried chicken in a batter, but it’s tossed in a fish sauce caramel.’ They tried to take the dish off the menu and replace it with a very similar dish, but made with a different cut of chicken. ‘The amount of people that went absolutely bonkers.’ laughed Jonathan ‘It’s nice because it means they’ve got a vested interest as customers as well.’

The slogan ‘People Make Glasgow’ could easily seem trite, but it’s a sentiment that comes up again and again when speaking to producers and chefs. Immigration in particular has shaped the region’s food. Ali Ahmed Aslam, the late owner and founder of Shish Mahal, made the (potentially spurious) claim to be the inventor of chicken tikka masala. Whether true or not, the dish’s popularity – both as a Glaswegian icon and British national dish – has often been pointed to as emblematic of an immigrant success story. In reality of course, Shish Mahal and other Glaswegian institutions like Mother India Café exist due to both the tenacity of and restrictions faced by their founders. Glasgow’s jumble of gelaterias – both old like the University Café and newer like Ginesi’s Artisan Gelato and La Gelatessa – also reflect the initial hostility towards and then acceptance of Italian immigrants.

More recently, the international student community has also changed the local food scene, as Jonathan explained to me. ‘There’s been a big explosion in international students going to Glasgow, Caledonia and Strathclyde University. In Partick, pretty much every second shop is a different noodle bar, dumpling bar, roast duck shop or something. It’s pretty incredible. It’s great because it brings so much diversity. Glasgow’s always had that kind of affinity with food from other places. Maybe because ours is a bit drab traditionally.’

Glasgow’s need to straddle gentrification, immigration and working class identity is of course not unique to the city, but it is clearly keenly felt by many of those working in the food industry there. The Southside, where many migrants to the city initially settled, is now a mixture of restaurants that have been around for generations – like Ranjit’s Kitchen – and those which have just arrived on the scene – like the phenomenal bakery two.eight.seven. The life of Glasgow’s working class has been brilliantly documented across countless different art forms, including a photography exhibition and book by Simon Murphy, and at the Tenement House museum in Glasgow itself. Its restaurant scene is yet another means of understanding the city’s history and identity, not only through historic restaurants like the Willow Tea Rooms, but also through the deeply personal food of 111 by Modou. Wherever you go, you’re sure to get a little taste of the people who make and have made Glasgow.