Virginia Bar & Rotisserie

This is part of the Cup group of cafes and restaurants. I think that during the day it serves as a café (and I’m sure it would be a lovely spot for a light lunch) but on this occasion I visited in the evening and the focus had shifted to suit the restaurant/​bar crowd. It was a little quiet, with only one or two other groups visiting while we were there, but it was midweek and the weather was miserable, so perhaps this isn’t representative.
First off, lets look at the cocktails list. There are too many places in this world that believe cocktails are all about sugar. Flavoured syrups get poured sugar-​crusted glasses with fruit juices with a dribble of vodka. If that suits you you’re lucky because you’ll never struggle to find such a thing, but it doesn’t suit me, when I order a cocktail I want something strong but delicately balanced. I want to know I’m drinking alcohol — I just don’t want to drink it neat. The cocktail list at the Virginia Bar and Rotisserie couldn’t do this better — there isn’t much on the list I wouldn’t order but in the end I settled for a Trade Winds and I had no regrets.
Once everyone was settled with a drink we decided to order the main event — since this is a rotisserie that means chicken. We ordered two full chickens for our group of six and a selection of sides. Honestly, I would never normally order roast chicken in a restaurant. Maybe a chicken burger, or a pasta with chicken in it, but never just roast chicken. It doesn’t strike me as exciting. So when I say the chicken was tasty and juicy but not very exciting, that’s probably why. I’m just not a huge chicken person.
The sides were good, though, especially the sweet potato fries, and I would definitely go back to methodically work my way through both the rest of the cocktail list and their selection of macaroni and cheese dishes.

What a wonderful evening! We had a little dining event here with Unilocal and the setting was just perfect. Having only recently opened the décor is Devine! Dark greens and wood furnishings, low mood lighting, interesting designs and an open kitchen window into the seating area.
Our table comfortably sat 6, plus there are booths and smaller tables for more intimate dining.
Disclaimer: I’m not a gin fan and this place specialises in gin! All their cocktails looked fabulous and went down a treat with other guests but not so much with myself.
We ordered two full rotisserie chickens, some sides of fries, a couple of their gluten free (!) macaroni cheese dishes and I got a chilli prawns starter. This seemed to more than satisfy 6 people!
It’s a really interesting concept, on one hand you have a dimly lit, swanky gin bar, on the other chicken on the bone with some fries, these feel to me to be very different places rolled together, it sort of works.
I liked the chicken, but it’s not something I’d usually just eat on its own, even with fries. The fries were tasty, nothing too special but their range was good, chunky triple cooked, sweet potato fries and regular skinny potato fries, something for everyone.
I might go back if I’m with some gin enthusiasts. Overall it is a very warm atmosphere, friendly staff and good food.

I’m already a fan of the Cup family, so I was excited when I heard they were opening in Merchant City (where Rock Lobster used to be). I love Virginia Court and it’s the perfect covert location for discreet, romantic dinners — or a catch up with friends!
I booked online for a group of us (they’ll take card details for bookings of 6 or more) and phoned to check about gluten free of which they assured me there was plenty of choice. I like the décor inside — it’s dark and gloomy without being too depressing or dim. There’s a few unusual touches around the place too. The dining area isn’t huge, and we were initially offered a round table but it was a quiet nice and the table is right in the middle of the room, so I opted to sit at the bench seating along the window instead. There’s also a couple of booth seats which looked quite cosy.
They seem to have expanded the menu — when I first looked a few weeks back, it seemed to just be rotisserie chicken and then sides, but now there’s more choice of mains and you can get macaroni cheese as a main too. The menu sounds really nice and on this occasion, we opted for two whole chickens between 6 people, as well as a bunch of sides. The waitress had advised that a chicken served 2 – 3 people but I think it really is more like 3 people as we had leftovers at the end (which they happily wrapped for take away, after signing a disclaimer!). The food was all really good — I couldn’t fault anything — I liked that the chicken was served already sectioned so there was no awkward carving at the table, and it comes with a selection of sauces. The sweet potato fries were the highlight of the sides for me, super crispy and just delicious. Yum.
I didn’t try the macaroni cheese but they can do of the whopped 5 choices (chipotle chicken, ham & cheese, pesto, blue mac as well as standard) as gluten free which is pretty awesome to see — the staff were really knowledgeable about what was GF and what wasn’t. They also have GF desserts which I also skipped (gluten free is do-​able — GF and dairy free is proving to be more of a challenge!). I’d had a cocktail earlier in the night which was just delicious, and they were able to do it without the evil addition of cucumber at my request. As you’d expect from the people behind Gin 71, there’s an amazing gin/​drinks list.
Overall, I really enjoyed dinner here and am keen to get back to try some of the different mains on the menu other than rotisserie chicken — chicken shawarma sounds really good, as do the fish cakes and there’s a veggie option of a falafel/​mushroom burger too.

Visited last night with some lovely Unilocalers as part of the secret dining event and i loved it!
This is the new branch of cup who already have stores in the city centre and west end. During the day it is the cup tea room and at night it is a Gin and cocktail bar.
It is quite a small restaurant with a few booths so i would reccomend booking in advance as to not be dissapointed.
I was very excited to be informed they they can cater for gluten free here. Rotisserie chicken is the speciality however they have side dishes of macaroni cheese that can be made up into main sized courses. I chose the main sized mozzarella and pesto and it was amazing. Really cheesy and the pasta was cooked perfectly.
We also chose a selection of sides which included sweet potato fries, skinny and triple cooked chips and coleslaw. Im a huge coleslaw lover and was not dissapointed!
I spied on the menu a flourless brownie so naturally i had to have this for dessert. It was accompanied with salted caramel ice cream. It was soooooo good.
I can 100% say for sure this will not be my last visit here.

The hidden joys of Virginia Court, which I always seem to manage to forget exists, include the Virginia Bar, sister to Gin 71 and a similar ‘coffee and cake’ by day, ‘gin and food’ by night.
We had a table booked but there was a mix up and someone else got that but the staff soon shuffled together some tables for us, but not a great start to the evening. It was about 4.30 and I think we got there just around the staff changeover, which may explain the long long wait for our first drinks.
One slight disappointment, having drank in Gin71 I expected the drinks list to be similar if not the same, but Virginia Bar is a lot more limited it seems. However, my Southsider was very delicious when it arrived, just a shame there wasn’t more choice of gin cocktails.
Alas, when the second drinks also took quite a while to arrive — and given that most of us had ditched the cocktail in favour of a spirit+mixer with the thinking it would speed things up for the bar — it was a little disappointing. There were at least 4 people in the bar area serving tables and making drinks, and it wasn’t that busy so I’m not really sure a gin and tonic took 15 minutes to appear.
The staff were friendly though, apologetic at the mix up with the tables and that our drinks were taking a while come out to us, so at least they were aware of that. There were good smells coming from the kitchen before we left, but we had Tomahawk steaks in our future so after our second drinks we settled up and left.
Not sure I’d hurry back, although I guess it might be quicker if there was a smaller group?
One advantage would be the location, as it’s a little hidden away, and has outside seating, I can see the Virginia Bar being a nice little ‘secret’ hidey hole for the summer months.

This wasn’t the plan, but we were hungry and it was cold out and so we decided to eat here. It’s subdued, unassuming, but comfortable and friendly. We started with a couple of gins, they didn’t have the Isle of Harris, but they did have Caorunn and Arbikie Kirsty’s Gin both of which weren’t bad at all. This gin bar’s menu is intentionally basic, chicken in different fractions off the rotisserie, with sides of chips, mac ‘n’ cheese, slaw, corn or beans. We decided to split a whole chicken and get two sides of chips and a mac ‘n’ cheese main.
It didn’t take long, and when it came it was a very decent sized free-​range bird, cooked just right and not dry as I feared. The triple-​cooked chips were a bit overdone for my taste, but that’s just a preference I have. I’ve tasted better chipping potatoes to be honest but they were still good, and fluffy in the middle. The mac ‘n’ cheese was nice also, four cheese, but subtly cheesy and quite creamy, it went well with my chicken and chips.
Well I was quite happy with my simple meal, but as a tip even for us it was a portion of chips and possibly a quarter chicken too far.