Malo Wine & Negroni Bar
Andy MacSween is a sommelier, and he built a bar around the two things he drinks, in a Bothwell Street basement that used to be a gym.
Why go
Andy and Emma MacSween are married and have three decades in hospitality between them, and Malo is the third room in their small group after Ralph & Finns and Vroni's Wine Bar (Glasgowist). Andy picks the wine, which runs past 100 bottles and is chosen to move a drinker sideways rather than upward: We have your firm favourites but also have low intervention, natural and unusual grape varieties.
The negroni is the other axis, listed out into variations, which is why the bar carries the word in its name. An Art Deco fit-out gave the basement a 10-metre bar, 120 seats and a private tasting room. Food stops at charcuterie and platters of George Mewes cheese, cut by the Glasgow cheesemonger who supplies half the good kitchens in the city.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a negroni from the variations list first, since that is the drink the room was designed around. Then hand the wine choice to Andy MacSween and ask for a grape you know from a country you have not drunk it from, which is the brief he set himself. The George Mewes cheese platter is the board to take, and it holds up next to a Campari-heavy drink better than the charcuterie does.
- Avoid: planning dinner here. Blythe Robertson's CLASS review covers the drinks and does not touch food, because there is no kitchen menu to cover2. Also do not go looking for it on the Southside. The Nithsdale Road wine bar in Strathbungo is Lunar; Malo is a city centre basement.
What locals & experts say
- CLASS (Blythe Robertson, July 2023), 7 out of 10:
Drinks are delivered in fine style,
and the roomfeels open and welcoming to a broad crowd, but at the same time offering enough cocktail craft for the drinks aficionado.
2 - Glasgowist (Paul Trainer, December 2022):
A city centre basement wine and negroni bar opened this week on Bothwell Street,
servingover 100 different wines, an extensive cocktail list alongside charcuterie boards and platters of George Mewes' cheese.
1 - Andy MacSween, sommelier and co-owner, on the brief:
I am excited to show our customers their favourite grapes but maybe from countries they haven't tried before.
1 - Local rec: Jeff's save. He left no note on it.
Good to know
- Timing: noon to midnight, seven days, as published when it opened in December 2022. Check before a late arrival.
- Booking: worth booking for a group. There are 120 seats and a separate tasting room, so a table for six is a reasonable ask rather than a favor.
- Where: the basement of Abbey House, 12 Bothwell Street, about five minutes on foot from Central Station.
- Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme rates the address a Pass, inspected 31 July 2025.3
Craft signals (wine and cocktails: depth, not rotation)
No evolution: value is recorded here, on purpose. The craft axis in this room is depth on both sides of the bar: a list past 100 bottles picked by a working sommelier, chosen to move a drinker sideways into unfamiliar countries rather than upward in price, with low-intervention and unusual varieties sitting beside the firm favourites, plus a negroni built out into variations, which is a classic worked rather than a list replaced. Nobody has published a menu launch, a glass-rotation cycle or a tasting programme, and CLASS's 7 out of 10 in July 2023 is the last outside assessment of any kind. Marking a sommelier's hundred-bottle list static would misread the principle, so the field stays off and the depth case stands on its own.
Verdict
could-visit — Andy MacSween is a sommelier, Emma MacSween runs the front, and between them they turned a Bothwell Street gym basement into a room with a 10-metre bar, 120 seats and a private tasting room. The wine list runs past 100 bottles and his stated interest is showing a drinker a grape they know from a country they do not. The negroni half is a list of variations, which is the whole reason the bar has that word in its name. CLASS scored it 7 out of 10 in July 2023 and said the drinks arrive in fine style. It does not climb higher because there is no kitchen, no award, and nothing published about it since 2023.