Fat Hippo Glasgow.

Fat Hippo Glasgow

Mike Phillips wrote Fat Hippo as a university business plan and opened it in an end-terrace in Jesmond, Newcastle, in 2010, and the St Vincent Street room was the company's first full restaurant in Scotland.

Why go

The group had already tested Scotland with a concession kiosk inside the Lane 7 complex at Edinburgh's St James Quarter in 2021 before committing to a proper Glasgow restaurant (GlasgowWorld). What separates it from the rest of the mid-market burger field is a pair of specific decisions. Patties are built for crust, and the roll is what the company calls demi-brioche, deliberately less buttery than the standard, so it holds (The List). Fries come with every burger rather than as an upsell. Phillips's own pitch for the place is the good kind of gluttony3, which is a fair description of a menu whose PB&J puts peanut butter and bacon jam on beef.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the double patty with buttermilk chicken, smoked bacon, pink pickled onions, Fat Hippo sauce and hot honey, which is the build GlasgowWorld named when it ranked the place fourth in the city2. The PB&J is the one to take if you want the house's sense of humor on a plate. Upgrade the included side to waffle fries.
• Avoid: paying extra for a side, since one is included. And set expectations against the city's independents: The List ranks El Perro Negro's bone marrow and roquefort butter work ahead of this, and it is right to.

What locals & experts say

• The List, 6 banging burger restaurants in Glasgow: Patties here have a cracking balance of crispy browned exterior and juiciness within, served on 'demi-brioche' (as in not quite as buttery) rolls. One of the few places where you get a side included and you can even upgrade to waffle fries.1
• GlasgowWorld (Liam Smillie, April 2025): placed fourth of ten in Glasgow's Best Burgers 2025.2
• GlasgowWorld (Rosalind Erskine, January 2022) reported the opening as the chain's first full Scottish restaurant, with a carefully designed range of vegan, gluten-free and dairy-free options alongside the beef and buttermilk chicken patties.3

Good to know

• Timing: lunch through dinner. Exact hours on Maps.
• Booking: the company takes bookings, which is worth using at weekends.
• Value: fries are included with the burger. Waffle fries are the upgrade.
• Groups and families: family-friendly by design, with a kids menu.
• Diets: vegan, gluten-free and dairy-free options are on the menu per the opening report. That report is from January 2022 and the current allergen policy was not read, so celiac diners should ask about cross-contamination.
• Hygiene: FHIS Pass, inspected 4 October 2022. No re-inspection is recorded since.

Verdict

listed — A competent, well-run burger chain in a good city-centre spot, and what The List says about the patty is the reason to believe it: a real crust holding against a juicy interior, on a roll chosen to be less buttery so it does not collapse. GlasgowWorld put it fourth in the city in April 2025, and a side comes with the burger, which is unusual and matters. It stays at listed because Glasgow's burger conversation is dominated by independents doing more interesting work, El Perro Negro among them, and because nothing here is unavailable in twelve other British cities. Good to know it exists when you need a reliable burger near St Vincent Street.