Award-winning chefs, fabulous food and atmospheric tours - the new chapter in The Globe Inn history
The Globe Inn is one of those places whose history is ingrained into the walls…and windows. It predates Robert Burns though not much is known about its history until the national bard made it one of his favourite places to stay, eat and drink.
Because of this, the Globe Inn has been part of the Burns story with previous and current owners keen to preserve this. The historic hostelry was bought in 2018 by current owners David Thomson and Teresa Church primarily to preserve the Burns Rooms.
These include the room where Burns spent the night when he was staying at the Globe as well as a private dining room which has Burns' own dining table, his Poet’s Chair and many other original artefacts. Teresa and David, who consider themselves the custodians of the Globe, invested heavily in a sympathetic restoration of the entire property, with a view to building up a commercially viable hostelry that’s capable of sustaining the historic Burns Rooms for many generations to come. The Globe Inn reopened after this refurbishment in 2021.
Now the Globe Inn consists of the 1610 restaurant, private dining rooms and bar areas and is a cosy, atmospheric place complete with Timorous Beasties furnishings, bespoke artwork and three beautiful stained-glass windows, which depict scenes from Tam O' Shanter. In the bar, whisky fans won’t be disappointed as there’s over 300 single malts including bottles of Man O' Words and Man O' Swords from David and Teresa's Annandale distillery.
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Speaking of being the custodians of the Globe, David said: “We're not going to live forever, but we want The Globe and Annandale Distillery and all the other projects that we're working on here to live on beyond us. So that's why we call ourselves the custodians, and our ambition in all of these businesses is to make them financially self-sustaining, so they have a future beyond this.”
While Teresa and David were keen to preserve The Globe Inn, they also both enjoyed Robert Burns’ work and wanted the bar, restaurant and museum to bring Burns to locals and visitors. David, who is from Dumfries and drank in The Globe from when he was a teenager, learned Burns poems at school while Teresa loves the ‘epic poem’ that is Tam O’ Shanter.
When the couple bought the business, they had a very clear goal of offering career opportunities to locals and to build a very skilled team.
Teresa explained this, plus the ethos of the food saying: “We wanted to promote using all local products, so all the meat that comes from three miles down the road and all the other products that we use, we try to source as much as possible locally. And also, the other aspiration is that we don't want to just give jobs - we want to give careers.
In the kitchen at The Globe. Head chef Fraser Cameron - who works alongside head of cuisine Jonathan Brett - is a good example of someone who has grown and flourished in the time he’s been working there. Of his career Fraser said: “I started in hospitality when I was 13 as a dishwasher. It was just an after-school job, and it wasn't really my first choice of career as at the time, I didn't know what I wanted to do. But I think I just instantly kind of fell in love with the whole kind of kitchen banter, the camaraderie of everything, and from there, just kind of progressively moved on working in different places. I actually worked for Jonathan when I was 14.”
Fraser was awarded the Andrew Fairlie Scholarship in 2014. He’s worked in Restaurant Andrew Fairlie, Martin Wishart’s The Honours and 21212 under the late Paul Kitching. Food at The Globe is inspired by Jonathan Brett’s Anglo-European culinary groundings and head chef, Fraser Cameron’s traditional Scottish roots, and it’s well worth trying the tasting menu.
You can book a tour of The Globe Inn or a table in the 1610 restaurant by visiting - www.globeinndumfries.co.uk