Our review of Slanj-A-Va, Stirling: it was The Kilted Kangaroo until 2023
Benefits
- A courtyard you cannot see from the street, with its row of painted wooden huts
- Burgers that deliver, the plain one included
- Affordable on a Sunday evening, when half the town has already shut
- A proper lively pub with two stages, bands and club nights, not just a kitchen
Disadvantages
- Street food and it says so, not a night out with traditional Scottish cooking
- Fries are not included with the burgers and are ordered separately
- Very large and very loud, not the address for a quiet dinner
Who is this place for?
- Travellers who want to eat properly without taking the budget apart
- Groups, and anyone after a pub with music and a bit of noise
- Anyone arriving on a Sunday evening to find everywhere else closed
A good find, entirely by accident: the courtyard alone is worth the detour, and the burgers live up to the sales pitch.
There is a very particular feeling to a Sunday evening in a small town when you are looking for somewhere to eat and you watch the shutters come down one by one. Stirling did exactly that to us. We walked back up through the streets, watched the windows go dark, and the question turned from what would we like into something a good deal more practical: who is still willing to serve anything at all. You know this one better than we do.
Then we spotted a sign below street level with two words on it: Slanj-A-Va, and Kitchen. The second was of considerably more interest to us than the first, which we could not begin to pronounce. We went down to have a look.
We nearly walked straight past it
Getting in is an event in itself. You go under a building, between two painted walls, with no view of anything behind them. From the street you have no idea what is back there and, at that point in the evening, we would have walked into more or less anything with a kitchen still running.
And then you come out into this. A courtyard, fairy lights strung over the tables, and a row of wooden huts painted orange, blue, red, pale blue and cream, each with its own picnic table inside. They are beach huts, essentially, dropped into the middle of Stirling. We had gone out looking for somewhere open and walked into the least likely setting of the day.
Beach huts at the back of a courtyard
The idea is a good one: each hut is a small private room outdoors, under cover, where a few of you can sit and eat and drink. There are ordinary picnic tables out in the courtyard too, and a terrace along the glazed frontage. The place claims the largest beer garden in Stirling, roof terrace included, and going by the floor area that is not bragging.
What we had not worked out was the scale of it once you go inside. From the street you picture a back yard; what you get is an enormous room, a very long bar by the door, the kitchen behind it and tables everywhere. At a glance it is comfortably a hundred covers, which is our rough order of magnitude rather than any official capacity. It is not simply somewhere to eat, it is a full-blown pub, two stages, local bands and DJs, social clubs and karaoke.
The name, which we worked out afterwards
We mangled it all evening. You will not need this explained, so let us just say it plainly and move on: Slanj-A-Va is Slàinte Mhath, respelt so that people like us can get near it. Which is the joke, really. The sign is already the pronunciation guide, and we still could not manage it. We spent the evening in a pub called Cheers and only worked that out on the way home.
One thing worth settling, since it comes up: the phrase belongs to Irish as much as to Scottish Gaelic, same sound, slightly different spelling. In Stirling you are plainly in the second case.
The genuinely surprising part is the history of the address, and this one is news to everybody. A pub with a Gaelic toast over the door is not some venerable old local: until 2023 it was The Kilted Kangaroo, and before that, Outback. An Australian theme bar, renamed after a Gaelic toast. The kangaroo in a kilt was already a negotiated position. This is simply the next stage of it.
Why we ended up ordering burgers
The menu turns up printed like an old newspaper, and it is thorough within a register it makes no apology for: finger food, snacks, street food. Let us be honest, it is junk food, not an evening with traditional Scottish cooking. After an hour of walking round a closed town, that was precisely what we were after.
The waitress settled it for us without hesitating: the burgers are what the house does, and she sold them hard. She recommended something else as well, and neither of us can now say what it was, so we are not going to invent it. Burgers it is.
Xavier took the Notorious P.I.G., the name doing what you would expect with the pork: double cheeseburger, bacon, pulled pork, pickles, burger sauce, BBQ sauce, crispy onions. Caroline took The Classic, double cheeseburger, lettuce, pickles, burger sauce, and bacon on top. On the side, the Nae Kissin’ fries, cajun, with garlic butter and garlic mayo, which the pair of us first heard as Nikeing fries, a thing that does not exist.
You will have read that menu in about four seconds. We took the whole evening. Nae Kissin’ is a warning and not a flavour, and the amount of garlic in those fries earns it. The children’s section is Weans, which was fine, and the line underneath telling you that once you are at high school you are no longer a wean was the bit that made us laugh. For what it is worth, the word turns up in print as early as 1725, in Allan Ramsay. That much we did have to look up.
The verdict came down on the waitress’s side
The Nae Kissin’ fries first: hot enough to notice, properly good, and the garlic mayo brings the softness that settles the cajun down. The portions are generous, which matters in a minute.
Then the burgers, and she was right. The Notorious P.I.G. runs distinctly sweet against the salt, driven by the BBQ sauce and the pulled pork, which Xavier clocked without minding it. Caroline rated her Classic highly, and her comment on it is more interesting than the burger: as the name promises, it goes after no clever combination at all, it is simply built very well indeed. Which is exactly where a plain burger is won or lost.
Two practical notes, because they change both the bill and the comfort. The fries are not included with the burgers, they are ordered separately. And one portion will do two people quite happily unless you are serious about it. After two days of doing very little but eat, a burger each and one portion of fries between us was plenty.
The sparkling water did not last
We started on sparkling water, which we were presenting proudly, in among the burgers, the bacon, the pulled pork and the garlic fries, as the healthy element we had held on to. You can see the standard of the argument.
The waitress, being Scottish, was having none of it. She came back four separate times to ask whether we really did not want anything else with the food. On the fourth we gave in and asked for a small beer. She brought an Amstel. That is how the one healthy thing on the table acquired a chaperone, under pressure that was entirely good-natured.
Eating in Scotland, or picking your side
The place sums up something we felt all week, and you will recognise the shape of it from home. If you want to eat out at a price you do not have to think about, you land on street food and pub food, again and again. It is good and it fills you up, but it is one register.
The moment you want to move up a level, towards proper sit-down cooking, a single plate can double against a pub burger, and it becomes a line in the budget rather than a detail. Either you stay with the street food or you decide to pay. We made that call most nights of the trip, and not always the same way. If you are working out your own visit, we have written up the whole town in our Stirling road trip and van guide.
What is different in Scotland is the other half of the ledger. There is an enormous amount here that costs nothing at all: the landscape, the walking, the coast, a town on foot. The wooded path and the esplanade at the Wallace Monument, to take the obvious one, are yours without spending a penny, and only the tower is ticketed.
The Wallace Monument, Stirling: nothing on earth remains but fame, and a rabbit in the car park
The first thing that greets you at the foot of Scotland's national monument is not William Wallace, and it is not his sword. It is an entirely relaxed rabbit. It...
Read moreAgainst that, Stirling Castle, which we did the same day, is the expensive thing you decide to buy with your eyes open. It is the one we had arranged the rest of our budget around. So the activities in a Scottish trip flex a great deal, and the meals are what climb if you are not paying attention.
Stirling Castle: we walked away in 2022, we paid up in 2026
In 2022 we walked up to the gate of Stirling Castle, read the price board, looked at each other, and walked away. Four years later we came back specifically to...
Read moreAnd if you want the exact opposite of Slanj-A-Va it is a few minutes away on foot: the Settle Inn, the oldest pub in the town, tiny, stone, no painted huts and no stage. We did both in one day, and it is a very good way of measuring the distance between two ideas of a Scottish pub.
Settle Inn, Stirling’s oldest pub (and the ten seconds we spent wondering what we were doing there)
We walked into this pub wondering whether we were allowed to be there. We walked out being kissed on both cheeks. In between: one hour, two beers, and the kind...
Read morePractical information
Where: Slanj-A-Va, 9 Upper Craigs, Stirling FK8 2DG, Scotland. You get in through a passage under a building, from the street below.
Type: pub, beer garden and a street food kitchen. Burgers, chicken tenders, loaded fries, hot dogs, grilled cheese.
The name: a respelling of Slàinte Mhath. The place was The Kilted Kangaroo before 2023, and Outback before that.
Atmosphere: very large, very lively, two stages, bands and DJs, social clubs and karaoke. Not the address for a quiet dinner.
Worth knowing: fries are not included with the burgers and are ordered separately, but one portion shares comfortably between two.
Visited: a Sunday evening in August.
Slanj-A-Va: what we wish we had known before going in
How do you actually say Slanj-A-Va, and what do you say back?
The sign is already the pronunciation, which is the whole joke. It is Slàinte Mhath, roughly “slanj-uh-va”, the mh landing as a soft v. If someone toasts you, the reply is Slàinte Mhòr, “great health”, roughly “slanj-a-vore”. On the west coast you will also hear slàinte agad-sa, literally “health to you”. And the phrase belongs to Irish as much as to Scottish Gaelic, same sound, slightly different spelling.
Where exactly is the entrance? You cannot see it from the street.
The address is 9 Upper Craigs, in the centre of Stirling, postcode FK8 2DG. And no, you can't see anything from the street: you have to spot the sign below, then go under a building, between two painted walls, before emerging in the courtyard. That's exactly why we almost walked past it without seeing it.
Is it a traditional old Scottish pub?
No, and that's the trap that the name sets. Despite its Gaelic toast in the sign, the establishment was only renamed Slanj-A-Va in 2023. Before that, it was called The Kilted Kangaroo, and even before that, Outback: it was an Australian-themed bar. The kangaroo in a kilt was already a compromise, this is simply the next stage of it. If you're looking for the real old pub in Stirling, you need to go elsewhere.
Is there anything Scottish on the menu, or is it all street food?
There is one, and it is smarter than it looks: the Scheme Poutine, in the loaded fries section, which are fries with haggis, cheddar, pepper sauce, and crispy onions. It's a poutine with a Scottish twist. The name is doing some work too, a scheme being a council housing estate. For the rest, the menu commits fully to burgers, tacos, hot dogs, chicken tenders and grilled cheese.
Is the menu really written in Scots, or is that a gimmick?
It is written in Scots throughout, and it is doing more than decorating. Wean, the contraction of wee ane, turns up in print as early as 1725, in Allan Ramsay, so the children's section is quoting something a good deal older than the pub. Elsewhere you get wi, nae, wan, burd and hunner doing exactly what you would expect. The one that earns its name is the Nae Kissin' fries: that is a warning about the quantity of garlic, not a flavour.
Can you just go for a drink without eating?
Yes, it is primarily a pub before being a kitchen. They do local and international cocktails, wines, beers, and spirits, and claims the largest beer garden in Stirling, rooftop terrace included. Given the size of the courtyard and the length of the bar, we want to believe them.
Is there music, and are there club nights?
Plenty. The place hosts two stages, with local musicians and DJs, seven days a week, and also runs social clubs and karaoke. This is not just a programming detail, it truly defines the identity of the place: people come here as much for the evening as for the food.
Does it work if you turn up with children?
There is indeed a kids' menu, the Weans section, with hot dog, chicken tenders, mac'n'cheese, cheeseburger or haddock, all served with fries. The menu also clearly states that if you are in high school you are no longer a wean. That said, let's be honest: it's a very large pub, very lively, with music in the evening. During the day or at the beginning of service, why not. Later on, it is clearly an adult atmosphere.
And if it rains, can you still sit outside?
Yes, and that's the whole point of the huts. Each one is a small wooden hut closed on three sides and covered with a roof, with its picnic table inside: you are outside, but sheltered. Knowing that we are talking about Scotland, this is not a luxury. The classic picnic tables in the courtyard, on the other hand, are exposed.
