The story
Seafood Ristorante sits on Bruce Embankment, The Scores, in St Andrews, where a seafood-led Italian kitchen cooks fish landed by Scottish boats. The Good Food Guide lists it as Good for 2026.
The restaurant has been run by Italian hands since 2017, under the name Ristorante. Fish still drives most of the menu, and it is cooked in a plain-view kitchen where guests can watch the work. The cooking leans on Il Tricolore, with the occasional meat or game dish alongside.
Agnolotti of East Neuk crab come with Anstruther lobster sauce and sea herbs. Steamed Pittenweem day-boat halibut arrives with sea kale, monk's beard and a mussel sauce. A bourride-style brill with violet artichokes and fennel shows a more general European side to the kitchen.
The building is a modernist structure of glass and steel, cantilevered over the shore beside the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. Guides recall it as the former home of the Seafood Restaurant. The dining room has had a refurbishment since the pandemic, and Michelin lists the restaurant as Recommended for 2026. Window seats are popular, but the restaurant cannot always guarantee them.
The wine list focuses on Italian regional bottles, starting from £28, and includes serious French vintages. Set lunches offer fair value for much of the same cooking. Desserts stay Italian, with vanilla panna cotta served alongside rhubarb crémeux and rhubarb sorbet.
Recognition
Details
History
Guide readers with long memories many recall that this modernist cube-like construction of glass and steel was once home to the Seafood Restaurant – a rare sight, cantilevered over the shore and adjacent to the venerable Royal and Ancient Golf Club. Since 2017, however, it’s been in Italian hands as a 'Ristorante', although fish from the Scottish boats – cooked in a ‘plain-view’ kitchen – is still the main attraction. The dining room has been given a much-needed post-pandemic refurb, but most of the menu still salutes Il Tricolore: agnolotti of East Neuk crab with Anstruther lobster sauce and sea herbs or steamed Pittenweem day-boat halibut with a maritime jumble of sea kale, monk’s beard and mussel sauce. More generic European ideas also crop up (a bourride-style creation of brill with violet artichokes and fennel, for example) and visitors can also expect the occasional meat or game speciality too (perhaps Perthshire roe deer with duck liver, celeriac, salsify and a dark espresso syrup). Set lunches offer fair value for similar dishes, concluding with pure Italian ‘dolci’ such as vanilla panna cotta with rhubarb crémeux and rhubarb sorbet. Service receives the thumbs-up, as does the fascinating wine list, which majors in Italian regional bottles (from £28), but also picks up serious vintages from France and the rest of the oenophile world.
Location
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