EAT DUNDEE

Come for the pies and cake, stay for the locally brewed IPA, spiced gin and a bounty of fish and fresh game, all ingredients in Dundee's current culinary renaissance

- JESSICA VINCENT

It’s 1am on a Friday and I’m eating a kebab pie on an industrial estate in Dundee. University students are slumped on the curb, heads hanging over steaming cardboard boxes filled with macaroni cheese and haggis pies. Other late-night punters — taxi drivers, hen parties and workers in high-vis jackets — order meatfilled rolls with names like the Gut Buster and the Helicopter. The air is thick with the sweet, yeasty aroma of a working bakery, and I’m two bites away from cardiac arrest. The pastry of my kebab pie, still warm and greasy from the oven, is buttery but firm. Inside are ribbons of doner meat laced in lashings of blood-red Baba’s, a locally made sweet chilli sauce that gets spicier with every bite. On top, an inch of melted cheddar and red Leicester replaces the pastry lid.