Cafe Rio
Found in Partick just off Glasgow’s West End, I can easily argue that The Rio Cafe serves the best coffee in Glasgow… I mean Scotland… ok The Planet!
Open for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a night time tipple The Rio Cafe caters to a mixed crowd of students, young families, wealthy couples and scaffy shoegazers. The Cafe brings together the kind of global- home cooked food (yes there is such a thing) and drink influences you would expect to find in any city eatery, but in a low- key, unadorned environment.
With its retro stylings and traditional exterior, the Rio – part pub, part café – has a great 1950s vibe.
The cafe itself reminds me of my Grandmothers house back in the eighties. Flock wallpaper, brown lamp shades and strange pictures of freaky kids with big heads and wide eyes hanging on the walls.
The menu ranges from- eggs Benedict to pie, beans and chips. My favorite would have to be the fish cakes with mango sauce and the winning Rio salad. Drinks go from the child friendly milkshakes to the adult cheeky, Jack Daniels.
The Rio holds a range of events at night such as cabaret nights, poker events and jazz sessions. The poker nights are a great laugh and there is a chance to win a ‘poker seat’ down in London and in Las Vegas.
But, and it’s a big but… The Rio Cafe is at its best on a Sunday morning. Then you can seek solidarity with all the other hungover Glaswegians’ soothing our sore heads with a pile of news papers and a cup of the finest coffee in town!
