Best haggis

Any butchers shop if you have cooking facilities. Otherwise it is served as a breakfast food in hockey puck sized slices. Or if you are here on Burns night in January then you will find it as part of a Burn's Supper, in a larger portion served with neeps and tatties.

We will be in Edinburgh, Glasgow, iban, potree & Inverness. Is there a specific restaurant that is recommended for serving great Haggis ?

I enjoyed the Arcade Bar in Edinburgh and went there a couple times to eat. A haggis expert would have to tell you how it compares because I don’t think it’s served in the most traditional style, but I thought it was very good. It was also a good place to sit at the bar to eat (for one) and chat with whoever happens to be there. It’s a small place, though, so you may have a wait if they’re busy.

You can buy haggis at Costco in Scotland and cook your own.

I had it at a B&B I stayed at on Skye, and it was good. Not my favorite thing to eat but I was glad I got to try it.

Every butcher will have their own special recipe and the haggises can taste very different. A lot can came down to personal taste. I don't like those that contain liver as I find they can be very 'gamey'. It's a good excuse to go and try lots of different ones to see which you like best.

Haggis has become a popular bar snack and you can buy haggis bon bons or haggis bites in many bars. They are small balls of haggis, deep fried and served with a dipping sauce. Not my favorite but they seemed popular.

When I wanted to experience haggis during my visit to Edinburgh last year, I went to The Haggis Box, a concession located in The Scottish Storytelling Centre on High Street. It’s in the same building as the historic John Knox House, about midway down the Royal Mile.

They serve it with the traditional accompaniments of neeps and tatties (mashed turnips and potatoes) and your choice of sauce (a red wine sauce or a whisky-mustard cream sauce). And they make it with gluten-free oats, which is why I was able to eat haggis there even though it’s off limits to me in most other places. They also offer a vegetarian version.

hmmm...

deep fried haggis balls so none of the animal goes to waste I guess :)

I was determined to try haggis when in Edinburgh last September, and figured that Howies, a restaurant that had won awards for theirs, was my best bet--and I was right! I actually liked it, and would have it again--it was served as an appetizer with neeps and tatties and a light tasty brown gravy drizzled over it, the texture reminiscent of stuffing in the bird, no obvious sense that I was eating offal. They have 2 locations in Edinburgh, I was at the one on Waterloo Place near Waverly, and ate there twice as I loved everything I had there. Reservations are required.

https://www.howies.uk.com/

Don’t forget haggis flavored potato chips.

deep fried haggis balls so none of the animal goes to waste I guess :)

I see what you did there : )

Canadian here: very small hockey pucks, which are 1" by 3" diameter. My experience with haggis is EVERYWHERE is good!

Haggis is not something i would eat in a restaurant as I have it at home at least once a month and often more especially in the winter time but I can understand tourists wanting to try it.
Chicken Balmoral is a dish I often have in pub restaurants and introduced friends from the Czech Republic to it a couple of months ago. Basically chicken breast stuffed with haggis and wrapped in parma ham or bacon ( I use smoked bacon when making it at home) usually served with a whisky cream sauce.
https://www.macsween.co.uk/recipes/chicken-balmoral/

One of the highest-class haggises you can get is at the Ubiquitous Chip restaurant in Glasgow. I enjoyed it.

Chicken Balmoral is a dish I often have in pub restaurants

I recently bought some Chicken Balmoral pies from an online butcher as I'd never heard of them before (I was buying some lorne sausage, haggis, stornaway black pudding etc so needed to buy something to reach the free delivery threshold), what a fantastic pie filling that was, second only to the steak and haggis.

As for where to find the best haggis that's an impossible question to answer as there are so many different recipes and tastes are so subjective. Personally I prefer haggis for breakfast, sliced into rounds and fried so the sides are a bit crispy. Serve it alongside some "slice", stornaway black pudding, back bacon, cumberland sausage, grilled tomato, mushrooms and a fried egg and I'm set up until tea time.

JC you are just missing the tattie scone and you have the perfect brekkie right there.

I find a tattie scone just a bit too stodgy for me. I recently went the whole hog and added paloney and fruit pudding but found the sweetness of the fruit pudding too much and didn't really like the paloney. Fried bread would be the ultimate accompaniament but I simply can't justify the calories.

I also love to add a Welsh element by replacing the cumberland sausage with a Welsh Dragon, gives a nice kick to the breakfast. There's definitely a market for a full British Isles breakfast and what a superb breakfast that would be. My choice would consist of bacon from New Forest Pannage Pork (pigs left to roam the New Forest eating acorns and Beech mast), grilled Isle of Wight tomatoes, Welsh Dragon sausage, Scottish beef lorne sausage, Stornaway black pudding, sliced haggis, Northern Irish potato farl, a fried Burford Brown egg and all washed down with a mug of Twinings Full English tea.

I rarely like sausage, though freshly made by a good cook/chef can be nice. Is haggis a lot like sausage? I'll try it on my upcoming trip regardless, but the hockey puck/appetizer sizes sound like the best bets. Maybe not the deep fried version, though. I'd have to be a bit tipsy for that to go down well.

No, haggis is nothing like sausage. It's a mix of offal, pinhead oats, plenty of spices stuffed into a sheep's stomach. It sounds revolting but is actually very nice. I'm typically offal averse, I don't like liver, kidneys, sweetbreads etc but there's something about the use of oats and spice that really minimises/disguises the offal taste. Steamed/boiled haggis is nice enough however I feel it tastes better fried and allowed to develop a crust.

JC, I like the sound of your British Isles breakfast. Definitely a gap in the market for that!