Bar Soba closes in the Merchant City after 10 years of cocktails and street food

Bar Soba in Merchant Square closed at the weekend. The restaurant serving street food inspired by the night markets of Southeast Asia with creative cocktails and music from local DJs opened on Albion Street in 2015. Last year the Glasgow restaurant group relinquished its venue on Byres Road and a site in Edinburgh.

Bar Soba began on Mitchell Lane in 1999, fast becoming a fashionable city centre venue and a pioneer of Asian fusion street food in Glasgow. Founder Brad Stevens led an expansion of the brand in 2017 follows a £3m investment by the Business Growth Fund. At that time Bar Soba had five sites across Glasgow, Edinburgh and Leeds. He exited Bar Soba Group in 2019 to establish Pizza Punks.

Bar Soba describes its menu saying: “The Street Food culture of Southeast Asia's bustling night markets is our food inspiration. We take classic street food dishes and the finest produce, then scratch-make every element in our own kitchen. Creating some culinary remixes, these little bursts of flavour are sure to get your tastebuds dancing. Try some small plates, order something hot off the woks and wash it down with one of our signature cocktails.”

When Bar Soba opened ten years ago it was a welcome addition to the Merchant City dining scene, The Scotsman described it saying: ”A cool bar area by the door, arty graffiti adorning the walls and bench backs, and enough industrial lighting to rival the fairy lights of Merchant Square opening out from Soba’s little patch of decking.

“We shared a few small plates to start, the first, crisp salt and pepper squid with lime and coriander mayo; well cooked, still bouncy morsels of seafood covered in a rich salty crumb, perfect paired with ample supplies of sriracha sauce.

“Beef war tip dumplings were even better; rich, beefy flavour encased in light pastry, steamed and topped with fresh ribbons of cucumber and carrot, served dim sum style in bamboo. My dining companion is a dumpling connoisseur, so a nod from her is high praise indeed — these had her seal of approval from the first snap of the chopstick.

“Mains next, and mine was a feast fit for both of us, never mind one. Nasi goreng, the national dish of Indonesia in its own right, is paired with chicken sate and shrimp crackers at Bar Soba — and it’s a wonderful thing.”

Bar Soba will continue in the original location that started it all, with Pad Thai, Singapore noodles and Thai green curry on Mitchell Lane.