Restaurateur Of The Year
Tom and Michaela Kitchin
Late last year husband and wife team Tom and Michaela Kitchin opened their fourth Edinburgh restaurant, Southside Scran, quickly followed by a fifth, a 14-room hotel and restaurant called Bonnie Badger on Scotland’s east coast, capping off an eventful 12 months for Scotland’s power couple.
It wasn’t meant to pan out this way, but the hotel came up just as the couple had signed on the Southside Scran site and it proved too hard to resist having been a building with which they were already familiar. They are no doubt glad that they did with a recent review of the Bonnie Badger by The Sunday Times’ Marina O’Loughlin describing the food as ‘simply irresistible’.
The Kitchins now preside over a small but perfectly formed restaurant group that ticks so many boxes. It’s Michelin-starred Leith flagship The Kitchin is still considered of one the best restaurant in Scotland and its more informal, and affordable, sibling The Scran & Scallie has won a place in the hearts of the locals for being a proper pub serving stellar food.
Southside Scran is a bit more refined and has quickly established itself as a neighbourhood restaurant that people in the south of the city had been crying out for while Bonnie Badger has seen them successfully try their hands as hoteliers.
The Restaurateur of the Year award is sponsored by threesixty° by UCC Coffee