Brutti Compadres

As the name suggests it is a mix of Spanish and Italian as is their menu. I used to enjoy their business lunch which finished at 6pm but sadly they don’t seem to do this any more which is disappointing.
The last time I went in I just had a drink but my friends were eating. They enjoyed their Tapas however the waitress who was quite brisk, even though it was quiet, had to come back as several of their choices weren’t available. They received their food quickly and the other staff who talked to us were friendly.
Downstairs there’s a private room which looks cool and has its own bar but I’m not sure if it can be hired out as others would have to cut through to use the toilets.

Brutti Compadres is a fantastic Mediterranean tapas bar/​restaurant, hidden away off a lane in the Merchant City. The name literally means «ugly mates»! Owned by the same people as the Brunswick Hotel, there are plenty similarities between these hip haunts, the décor and vibe especially.
This is a great place to enjoy a glass or two of wine — or continental beers — outside on a sunny day. The large outdoor seating area is sheltered and far away from traffic, perfect. Inside is fairly spacious with a long bar. Food here is small plates, think Paella, breads/​cheeses/​olives, tortilla, salads, pastas, pizza, meat, fish, vegetable dishes. Prices range from £4-£6 per small plate. The menu is really extensive, order a few plates each, depending on how hungry you are!

I tried to keep an open mind about this place, having read some not so awesome reviews on Unilocal but meeting a friend who just loves it.
The restaurant is quite ascetically pleasing, with a nice outdoor area, although not enough to protect us from the torrential Glasgow rain!
We ordered a couple of drinks and baskets of fries as soon as we sat down. The fries were unusual, and quite tasty. We then ordered a couple of tapas dishes. I got the angry prawns, and cheese and bacon croquettes. My boyfriend got the cheese and bacon burger and our friend got the salt and chilli squid.
The food took quite a while to be served and unfortunately was quite disappointing. The squid and burger were good but the angry prawns weren’t what I was expecting given their name. I checked before ordering as they had angry and peaceful prawns and I fancied something with a bit of a kick but despite being quite tasty there was no kick at all. The croquettes I didn’t eat after trying one. The cheese and bacon was a mushed up mix and just not quite right.
Despite this I though we would be safe with a slice of chocolate cake. Alas we managed to eat some of it just for the sake of it, but our friend barely touched hers. It was overly sickly and filled with excess ganache.
It was over priced as each tapas was around £5 and slow service.
I won’t be going back.

Went here last night for the very first time. Very chic and very flattering soft light. Lots of space but not too spread out. Great cocktails
Will be sure to go there again, nicely out the way for a city centre bar. Perfect for a first date in fact

Came here for dinner with 3 friends on a bank holiday Monday. It was quiet inside but didn’t affect the atmosphere in what is a lovely place. Staff were really helpful and friendly and able to explain the dishes we didn’t understand! The tapas we had were all delicious, couldn’t fault anything, and having 4 each we tried a fair number of them off the menu! Adding in desserts and 2 rounds of soft drinks and the bill was £92 — very reasonable for the amount of food we’d had. Will definitely be back!

after a long day of shopping, my friend and i were in need of a tasty dinner with some alcoholic based beverages. since glasgow isn’t our town, i turned to Unilocal for a few suggestions and came across Brutti Compadres. it had good ratings, a nice looking menu, and was only about 5 minutes from where we were standing. so after a quick glance of the map and a wander we were sat down at a table for two.
now it might be because i don’t know glasgow well so finding things is always a bit difficult for me. this place is tucked away in a little courtyard so at first we walked past it, so a bit of signage on the street might be helpful (unless we totally missed the sign…) the restaurant is in a newish building making it very modern on the insides. but it’s still cosy, with one side of the restaurant being mostly windows onto the courtyard and the other side a fairly extensive bar. it was darkish with candle light but not so dark that i struggled to read the menu, so quite a nice ambiance for a post shopping day dinner.
what had drawn us to Brutti Compadres was the fact it was a tapas menu and we could order a few different dishes. we started with the bottle of house white that was reasonably priced and easy to drink. we followed with about 6 dishes: garlic shrimp, bread with tapenade, manchego cheese, sausages wrapped in bacon, chick pea and halloumi stew, and i feel like one more dish i may be forgetting… all of the food was super tasty and came in good size portions so we were nicely full after the meal. specifically there was loads of manchego cheese in the portion that we ordered, so bonus points for that. i think both of our favourite (after the cheese) was the garlic shrimp. these were so delectable and extra butter made excellent dipping sauce for the bread. after dinner we treated ourselves to cocktails over desserts and my espresso martini was one of the best i’ve had in awhile. although i think the coffee in it kept me seriously wired for the rest of the night!
although the restaurant was busy, the waitress never made us feel like they needed the table back which meant we had a really leisurely time chatting. the wait staff were good although it was a bit hard to get their attention when we wanted the bill. however, at £30 each for a bottle of wine, two cocktails, and a filling dinner it’s hard to fault this restaurant much. i’d definitely happily come back here next time i was in glasgow!

The waiter went out of his way to give us a table (He cleared a table that was reserved for later). The food is always excellent (chickpea and halloumi stew is amazing) and arrives in good time. The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly.

This only slightly less unpronounceable sister of Brutti Ma Buoni is a tapas bar that doesn’t get quite the attention it deserves I reckon. It may be because its tucked into a lesser-​traipsed courtyard from the time of the Tobacco Lords. But it is a very nice setting, particularly on a balmy autumnal night such as when I was last there.
I brought the best part of a dozen fellow drinkers with me and though we hadn’t booked and the place was chocka the staff couldn’t be more accommodating, they sat us outside and pulled a few tables together. The service wasn’t faultless, but it was a damn good try given the circumstances. I can say too that everyone enjoyed every dish they had. As I have done every time I’ve been here.

I’ve decided to give this a bit of an update since August I’ve probably visited about 7 times.
The service is getting a lot better, more polished and they’ve completed downstairs which is great.
I had quite possibly one of the best takes on a fry up this morning, called the scone stack. It really is good. Potato scone, black pudding and square sausage. You have to see it to believe it.
Also, the staff are friendly, even had a very eccentric person in this morning (not sure if he was the manager) seemed very upbeat and perhaps not gone to bed after the night out but very good humoured.

We went for lunch today (Saturday afternoon, around 2:30pm) we were lucky to get a table even though we didn’t have a reservation as both inside and outside filled quickly while we were there. Turns out a girl I used to work beside was working there and was very helpful in advising how much we should share and recommended a few dishes. Jane and I were not disappointed! We had salami and prosciutto bread along with halloumi with chilli, haggis balls with a whiskey sauce, angry prawns and salt and pepper squid. A chilled Rioja was also recommended and we finished off with ice cream and crepes. Thoroughly enjoyed our meal, the service was attentive yet unintrusive and we weren’t hurried away from our table even though it was busy. Great location too in a quiet area within the city centre, would recommend!

Brilliant place to eat or drink everytime. The staff are the best and I would say the best tapas in Glasgow. The menu isn’t huge but there is a good selection from mini pizzas, pasta, seafood, meat and veggie options. So there is a mixture of Italian and Spanish tapas. I love the seafood stew and the brutti chips are handcut and delicious!
The prices are quite reasonable for tapas — which can usually end up quite expensive. Drinks are not too bad either — cava and prosecco are quite cheap and there is a good selection of beers and spirits.
However I would recommend their first restaurant — Brutti Ma Bouni — for people who would prefer a larger meal.
But still an excellent place to come for drinks and nibbles either for lunch or dinner. Great location and trendy décor! And also a great place to sit outside in the sunshine (the few times a year that it is possible in Glasgow)

Stopped in here on Friday for a wee pay day lunch with work folks. The restaurant sits ‘off the beaten track’ that is Argyle Street. I would never have known this wee bit existed if it wasn’t for a recommendation but thankfully Laura had the good sense to suggest it, book ahead and procure us an outdoor table!
The waiters were really friendly and knew their stuff about the menu. I had a steak sandwich, fries and cheese n bacon croquettes. All were superb; the steak sauce and red onions sat nicely on a slice of italian bread. I devoured promptly! The menu offers a decent selection of normal sized dishes but offer a tapas style selection of various nibbles, including chorizo bites, the aforementioned croquettes and various other Italian bits n pieces.
I took the wife along the following day and it was packed again so we had to move on but this place definitely remains on my visit again list.

Total wee suntrap in Virginia Court. Friendly staff and lots of outdoor tables (you can phone and have one reserved) and a menu with a wide variety of tapas, open faced sandwiches and specials.

This place is gorgeous to look at, really interesting and unusual design for Glasgow with yellow tinted windows, lots of light timber and a long, clean, slick bar area. We’d booked in for dinner at 7.15pm on a Friday night and were seated by the door. There is outdoor seating (with leopard print throws for when it gets chilly, nice touch) which would be nice for a nice day. It got quite cold by the door after a while but thankfully a nice waiter offered to close it for us which was really appreciated.
Our waitress was a little brisk but it seemed like she was run off her feet the whole night. The other staff we encountered were all friendly enough as well. Having a look over the menu I felt a little rushed to decide what to have but perhaps they wanted to turn our table over.
The menu is a little odd, to be honest. Pasta dishes on a tapas menu? I just don’t get it. There is also a selection of Brutti Bread Piccolo which I’m guessing is something like pinchos but never found out as the waitress didn’t seem to have the time to answer questions. I avoided the section of the menu that baffled me and stuck with the more traditional tapas dishes: croquettes (cheese and bacon), pan catalan (tomato bread), peaceful prawns (butter and garlic prawns) and deep fried halloumi.
Other dishes I tried thanks to my dining companions (Graeme H & Katie V) were chorizo, patatas bravas, albondigas and I’m sure there was also a squid/​calamari dish that I can’t see on the menu just now.
The stand out delicious dish for me were the croquettes. Super crispy on the outside and really cheesy in the middle, these were really amazing. So much so, as I excited tucked into the last one I was proclaiming how much I loved them, only to find the last one was empty. Yes, just a shell of a croquette and no filling inside. It was hilarious/​devastating. If they weren’t so good, I probably wouldn’t have said anything but seeing as I really wanted that last one, I told the waitress who got another portion bought over pretty quickly. I forgot to check the bill to see if we were charged for the extra portion. I hope not.
Everything else was ok. The pan catalan was tasty, but perhaps needed more soaking time for the tomato into the bread (and to cover the whole piece of bread as well). The chorizo was crispy and almost a little burnt. The halloumi was really good, but nothing really outstanding in terms of being anything different.
Dishes I wasn’t impressed with: the peaceful prawns and the patatas bravas. The prawns were really bland tasting, I couldn’t taste any garlic. The patatas bravas was more like a potato stew than crispy individual potatoes. And the albondigas was really hard, too hard for a meatball and it was pretty unpleasant to try to eat. The sauce was really nice though.
When eating a tapas meal it can be easy to bypass the disappointing dishes, but now I’ve come to write the review there was quite a few things I didn’t think were great. In terms of a cool place to go for a drink, I would definitely go here again. It’s a nice space and had a really nice Friday night vibe. But I would hesitate about going here for tapas — although I would order those croquettes again, for sure!
Edited to add: I would head to Brutti Ma Buoni rather than here as I found it much better overall! It’s their sister restaurant, also in Merchant City.

So tried this place again as it had been a while since my last visit. Again I love beer… and also their beer selection and a great whiskey selection.
The menu does not appeared to have changed too much but I think it was slightly updated since last I had tried it. I do love garlic and by god their garlic bread is amazing!!! Its like I personally went to the kitchen and hand crafted, no! Sculpted this garlic butter myself… okay well maybe not that far but yeah… anyway, it was a busy Friday night but service was prompt, the staff were high spirited and pleasant. I ended the meal with a whiskey from their nice selection. Did I mention that already… I like whiskey!
People of Glasgow or anywhere else for that matter, try this place!!! Or ill chase you with my garlic breath after I have ate their garlic bread!

Owners are those of my fav pub (The Brunswick). It’s a shame it’s not that busy. You would need to be Miss Marple to find it. Rather trendy place. The décor is cool. Sadly its full of brassy Debenhams shoppers. Fur coat nae knickers kind of crew. Staff are really nice, drinks priced the same as the Brunswick. Food is amazing. Again trying to find the loos you would need a degree in archeaology.

This café/​bar descendant of the vibrant Brutti ma Buoni in the Merchant City’s Brunswick Hotel is lodged in the newly derived shell of Virginia Court. The menu consists of a profusion of tapas style smaller plates; though the menu doesn’t make this obvious due to the inclusion of a section called «Small Plates» amongst the other sections of Pasta & Brutti Bread, leaving one to imagine that these are in some way smaller than the rest. I suspect this section and it’s name are directly lifted from it’s parent’s menu which contains an actual mix of large and small.
This spanish tapas style is hinted at by the mix of spanish and italian in the name «Brutti» meaning ugly in italian and «Compadres» meaning friends in spanish.
Overall the food was pleasant though not overly so. A pulled pork and chorizo sandwich was let down by poor quality chorizo which overwhelmed the other flavours. Fries (these are definitely not chips) tend to the chewy and are difficult to skewer. Despite the spanish influence the italian dishes were the most successfully realised: Brutti bread (pizza by another name) is very much in the rustic italian style. Pasta was uncomplicated and tasty though perhaps a little too uncomplicated for the price.

Discover this new gem in Virginia Court, just a short walk from the original jewel of the Merchant City in The Brunswick Hotel in Brunswick Street: little plates to suit all tastes; try it!