One of my favourite things about visiting new cities is exploring the lesser-known neighbourhoods you don’t always see written about in guidebooks.
It’s there you get a sense of how the locals really live.
Small boutique shops, artisan bakeries, independent art galleries, chic little wine bars – I could go on… They are far more interesting to delve into than the main strips everyone heads straight for.
Give me Barcelona’s El Born district over La Rambla any day.
I thought about this as I walked down Thistle Street on Saturday afternoon, making my way into Aberdeen city centre.
Sure, it’s only a very small area, but with the recent opening of wine bar Mara joining the likes of Almondine and Grape & Grain, plus the promise of a new Venezuelan restaurant above Food Story, the spot definitely has a certain buzz.
I live somewhere smack-bang in the middle of that area – sometimes known as Little Chelsea – and Rosemount. Yet again, another example of a thriving wee community just a stone’s throw away from the city centre. But I am ashamed to admit that I do not make the most of these neighbourhoods.
I don’t know if that’s because I’m a creature of habit, now conditioned to go into town – but I swore to myself at the weekend that things are going to change.
Within a 10-minute walk from my house, I can be shopping at a local butcher, fishmonger, cheesemonger and multiple independent bakeries. So why is it that, every week, I hop in my car and drive to Sainsbury’s for my food shop?
It was heartening last week to hear that the rate of empty units on Union Street is slowing significantly, and it would appear the incentives for businesses to open up on the Granite Mile seem to be working.
While I wish for nothing more than to see the success of these initiatives, don’t even smaller localised neighbourhoods filled with character and charm deserve to be promoted more too? And are we sleeping on a resurgence going on at another Union Street offshoot?
Pockets of our city are thriving
For many years, Holburn Street has been the somewhat ugly duckling compared to the Granite Mile. During my time as a student, I would have been actively discouraged from spending time there. But now it’s blossoming into a beautiful swan.
Within the array of eclectic local businesses there are some amazing eateries. Travancore is being heralded as the best curry house in Scotland, having scooped the title last year. Then there’s Big Manny’s at the Adam Lounge, with the cult-like following it has amassed.
This week, one Aberdeen couple unveiled Instagrammable cafe Oregano, due to open its doors within days. And let’s not forget about Pera and Bev’s Bistro.
North-east craft beer company Brew Toon has been granted permission for a new bar in the former Malt Mill, which fans are already looking forward to. It’s becoming quite a scene.
Pet stores, health food shops, furniture stores and boutique clothing stores like Country Ways are just some of the wonderful businesses flourishing.
These pubs are people’s locals, the shops are convenient for those who live nearby
But why is it that these pockets of the city are thriving while our main thoroughfare rapidly declines? The answer, I believe, lies in community. Homes surround these hubs.
These pubs are people’s locals, the shops are convenient for those who live nearby, and together the collection of businesses established to serve their communities makes for a pretty pleasant place to visit.
Don’t just open shops – build communities
The news that M&S is to leave St Nicholas Street was undeniably another devastating blow for the city centre. But, with it being our last remaining department store to take its leave, now is the time to think about shaking things up a bit, with the community in mind.
Business chiefs and planners have been waxing lyrical for long enough about enticing people into the city centre to live and work – now’s the time to think about how we make that happen.
It’s not enough to simply fill the empty units with national chains, vape shops and pound stores. We need to be creative, and we need businesses that will tend to the needs of those living nearby, providing a unique service people can’t get elsewhere.
Last weekend, en route to Spectra where tens of thousands of people gathered to take in the award-winning light show, my boyfriend and I lunched at Moonfish before enjoying a couple of drinks at Faffless and Resident X. With all three venues bustling, I thought: “This is where it’s at.”
And with work on the city’s new food market for local businesses underway, I am confident we have the potential for yet another great local hotspot to be born.
There are new plans for housing and student flats on the horizon on Union Street – could this be what’s needed to capture some of that community charm in the heart of Aberdeen, boosting business nearby?
Rebecca Buchan is deputy head of news and sport for The Press and Journal and Evening Express
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