Babbity Bowster

Robert and Angela Mullen run Babbity Bowster from a Georgian townhouse on Blackfriars Street attributed to the Adam family of architects, built in 1790 as a tobacco merchant's home and later known as the Kingshead Inn. The building stood derelict as a banana-ripening store before Fraser Laurie converted it into a pub, restaurant and hotel in 1985, taking the name from an old Scottish country dance. Six guest rooms sit above a ground-floor bar and an upstairs eatery and function space; the Mullens also run Rab Ha's nearby. The pub built an early following among the city's folk musicians and journalists from the Herald and Evening Times offices on Albion Street.