Unalome by Graeme Cheevers
Graeme Cheevers took a Michelin star eight months after opening his first solo restaurant and has held it in every guide since, and the way in is the three-course lunch at £55 rather than the £135 tasting menu.
Why go
Cheevers had already earned stars for other people before he opened here on 2 June 2021: five years holding one as head chef for Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond, then another at the Isle of Eriska in the 2020 guide (venue). Unalome is the first room that is his, built on more than half a million pounds of work on a Kelvingrove Street townhouse where he specified the open-kitchen fixtures himself, and the star arrived in the 2022 guide. He calls the cooking modern European shaped by Japanese technique, which lands as French sauce work under Japanese restraint: Gaby Soutar's John Dory came with saffron potatoes, braised violet artichoke, a red mullet and saffron sauce, croutons "as fine as veils" and a spiced saffron rouille (The Scotsman). The kitchen runs on electricity from 100% green sources with an Evogro growing system in-house, which is unusual capital to spend at this scale.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the three-course set lunch, £55 a head, which is the same kitchen at less than half the tasting-menu price and the reason this entry exists. Within it, the fish, which the Harden's survey singles out ("The fish courses are particularly good"), and the scallops and the duck, its Top Menu Tip ref. The canapes arrive regardless of which menu you pick: clams in abalone shells with dashi jelly and wasabi creme fraiche, and Mull Cheddar gougeres ref. Say yes to the cheese trolley.
- Avoid: leading with dinner. The seven-course tasting is £135 and the a la carte £100 for three courses, and the venue's own cancellation schedule prices the gap for you at £35 a head for lunch against £80 for dinner ref. Also avoid Wednesday if you want lunch: Wednesday is dinner only, and Monday and Tuesday are closed.
What locals & experts say
- MICHELIN Guide Great Britain & Ireland 2026, One Star, held every edition since 2022. One of two starred rooms in Glasgow, the other being Cail Bruich, and Scotland has no three-star restaurant. ref
- Harden's 2026 survey (diner reports edited by the guide, so read it as consensus rather than one critic): "Top cooking with no stuffiness," and on the price, "all agree that the set lunch is great value (at £55 per person, Michelin quality at a price that's half that of its nearest competitor)." An earlier edition put it shorter: "Glasgow needed a lunch like this." ref
- The Scotsman (Gaby Soutar, March 2024), reviewing the lunch and scoring the room 9/10 on ambience: "We didn't feel hard done by, going for the cheap seats." On the register, "For a relatively new restaurant, it's not trendy. Instead, think old school comfort, with a cheese trolley and crumb scrapers for the linen tablecloths." ref
- GlasgowWorld (Rosalind Erskine, March 2022), weeks after the star, on a lunch that then cost £35: it is "an accessible option that turns an occasion restaurant into somewhere you'd happily while away an afternoon with friends and family." Her caveat that day was supply, not cooking: the roe deer main was off because weather had stopped deliveries, and the substitute beef cheek "was deemed fine." ref
- Graeme Cheevers on the star (his own room, so this is his account and not a recommendation): "to receive such recognition from the Michelin Guide for my craft, within my first solo venture, is still pretty hard to believe." ref
Good to know
- Timing: closed Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday is dinner only, last booking 9pm. Thursday to Sunday runs lunch, last booking 2.30pm, and dinner, last booking 9pm. ref
- Booking: essential, and card details are required to hold any table. Cancelling or moving inside 72 hours is charged automatically, £35 a head at lunch and £80 at dinner. The Kitchen Table needs 14 days notice. A 12.5% service charge goes on the bill. ref
- Price: set lunch £55, a la carte £100, seven-course tasting £135. Wine from £45 a bottle in the Harden's survey, cocktails were £14 in 2024. The lunch is the only tier that reads as value.
- The room: a townhouse with a stone staircase and the star hung on the wall, tables set far enough apart that neighboring conversations stay theirs, and an open kitchen at one end.
- Groups: it works for a table of four at lunch; the tasting menu is a two-to-four proposition and the pacing is slow.
- Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 1 October 2025 (FHRSID 1373385). ref
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "solid particularly good value for lunch"
- Provenance: relayed by Jeff on 30 July 2026. There is no saved-places export for Glasgow, so this traces to his own words in that brief rather than to a
Notecell. His "solid" is why the class stays Solid rather than Icon despite the star. Whether he has eaten here is not recorded; ask him, because a first-hand read on the lunch would be the best evidence in this entry.
Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)
should-visit — Go at lunch. Graeme Cheevers took a star in the 2022 guide eight months after opening his first solo room and has held it in every edition since, including 2026, which makes this one of two starred kitchens in Glasgow. The reason it is a send rather than a special-occasion filing is the price ladder: three courses of the same kitchen's cooking at GBP 55, against GBP 100 a la carte and GBP 135 for the seven-course tasting. Harden's survey reports the consensus as 'Michelin quality at a price that's half that of its nearest competitor', and Rosalind Erskine made the same argument in 2022 when the lunch was GBP 35. The craft is real and traceable: five years holding a star for Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond, another at Isle of Eriska in 2020, and half a million pounds spent on a room where he specified the open-kitchen fixtures himself. Not must-visit, and this is where Jeff's own word governs: he calls it 'solid', the register is old-school comfort rather than anything cutting edge, dinner prices sit squarely in the ceremony band the ranking model pushes away from the front door, and no Glasgow chef is on record sending people here.