Gillian McKeith's guide to healthy restaurants in Glasgow.

Glasgow has one of the strongest independent vegan scenes in Britain, and it was built by small, stubborn, brilliant operators rather than by chains. That is precisely why the cooking has so much character. This is my home country and I will not be soft on it, so understand that everything on this page has earned its place.

Start fully plant-based. Mono behind the Trongate has been vegan since long before it was a selling point, and it still cooks with more conviction than kitchens half its age. The 78 in Finnieston is the one I send people to in winter, all stew and stovies and a fire going. Stereo on Renfield Lane is entirely vegan and unpretentious with it, and The Hug and Pint on Great Western Road does pan-Asian plant cooking with real depth of flavour rather than a plate of steamed sadness. Saramago Café Bar upstairs at the CCA is vegetarian, largely vegan, and one of the best value rooms in the city.

For vegetarian cooking outside the vegan bracket, Ranjit's Kitchen on Pollokshaws Road is my first answer and has been for years. Punjabi home cooking, entirely meat free, built on pulses, greens and spice. Picnic in the West End does honest wholefood breakfasts and Sprigg will build you a grain bowl at speed without wrecking your afternoon.

Then there are the omnivore rooms whose vegetable cooking I would order from all week. Cail Bruich in the West End holds a Michelin star and takes its vegetable courses as seriously as anything else. Ox and Finch and Alchemilla in Finnieston both put pulses and greens at the front of the small-plates list. Bilson Eleven in Dennistoun runs a tasting menu with a proper vegetarian version, Nanakusa does careful Japanese vegetable cooking, and the Ubiquitous Chip on Ashton Lane has been buying Scottish produce from named growers since 1971, which is longer than most of its rivals have been alive.

Purity, wholesomeness, organic wherever the kitchen can manage it, and plenty of fresh vegetables, pulses, grains and seeds. That is my entire test, and it has never let me down. Nobody on this page has paid me a penny to be recommended, and no cheque would change a word of it.