Ralph & Finns
Highland venison, sent out rare, in the Bank of England's former Scottish office a stone's throw from George Square (Scottish Field, Peter Ranscombe, 21 September 2022).
Why go
The Tomkins family had run this address for more than fifteen years as Urban Bar and Brasserie before they gutted it and reopened as Ralph & Finns on 6 November 2020 (Glasgowist). What came out is a 180-seat room built for several jobs at once: a 22-seat marble bar in the middle, all-day dining in the Garden Room, a whisky room, and a private dining room for 32 called The Boardroom, which is a joke about the building's former tenant. The interiors are Mark Brunjes of CM Design, the same hand behind Paesano and Hutchesons. Emma Tomkins runs it after Ollie's Bistro and Vroni's wine bar, with Andy MacSween on operations after seven years at Ox and Finch and Ka Pao. The cooking has moved through two named chefs since the rebrand, so read each dish below against the date of the source that names it.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Highland venison loin, GBP 24 in 2022 and the dish Ranscombe rated highest. He got
earthy aromas, with sweeter caramel touches, and then a deeper, almost resinous-like note too
, loin served rare with sweet and sour red cabbage, sweet potato fondant and figs, and wrote that itwouldn't have looked out of place even at the most high-end country house hotel
2. The 28-day dry-aged Aberdeen Angus steaks and the chicken Kiev, carried over from the Urban Brasserie years, are the other two constants. - Avoid: the hand-cut chips. Ranscombe added them at GBP 5.50 and found them undercooked, so the plate never got the crunch it was missing2.
What locals & experts say
- Peter Ranscombe (Scottish Field, 21 September 2022), on finding game cooked properly in the middle of town: the loin came rare,
capturing perfectly its tasty game flavours, with added sweetness from its caramelised edges.
Same review, same paragraph, the chips were undercooked. Read through a Wayback snapshot, since the publisher blocks our fetcher.2 - Paul Trainer (Glasgowist, 2 November 2020), on the scale of the rebuild: a
180 seater bar and restaurant
with the whisky room and The Boardroomin a nod to the building's history as the former Scottish HQ of the Bank of England.
1 - John-Paul Lappin, head chef at launch, who started with Alan Tomkins as a teenage commis chef:
We'll be using bold favours and great Scottish produce for classic dishes we hope everyone will enjoy.
His spelling of flavours, and his own words on the brief.1 - DRAM Scotland (5 November 2020), trade press, corroborating the family's tenure: the restaurant
has been owned by the Tomkins family for over 15 years.
3
Good to know
- Hygiene, stated plainly: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme rates this premises Improvement Required, the failing tier of the Scottish scheme, from an inspection on 18 December 2025 (FHRSID 21825, Glasgow City Council). It was still the rating in force on 30 July 2026, with no re-rating pending and no right-to-reply filed5. Seven months is recent, so treat it as current information about the kitchen rather than an old record.
- Address: the restaurant publishes 23 St Vincent Place and the hygiene register files it at 25. It is one premises across both numbers, in one building.
- Booking: in the venue's own words, reservations are for restaurant diners, with walk-in space kept for drinkers. Book if you want to eat.
- Groups: The Boardroom takes 32, and the whole room takes 180, which makes this one of the easier city-center rooms for a large table.
- Siblings, not branches: one premises. Ollie's Bistro and Vroni's are other Tomkins family ventures, and Urban Bar and Brasserie was this same address before the rebrand.
Verdict
could-visit — Highland venison loin, sent out rare, in the Bank of England's former Scottish office off George Square. Peter Ranscombe wrote that the plate would not have looked out of place at a high-end country house hotel, and also that the chips beside it were undercooked, which is the honest measure of the place: a serious kitchen inside a 180-seat brasserie built for occasions, with a 22-seat marble bar, a whisky room and a private room for 32. It sits at could-visit because the premises carries a Food Hygiene Information Scheme rating of Improvement Required from 18 December 2025, and because nothing published since 2022 tells you who is cooking now.