East Lothian restaurants: Tom Kitchin pub The Bonnie Badger applies to serve alcohol at breakfast

Celebrity chef’s East Lothian restaurant and hotel applies for morning alcohol permission

Scots chef Tom Kitchin’s East Lothian restaurant has applied for permission to serve alcohol to breakfast diners. The Bonnie Badger, in Gullane, wants to extend its licensing hours to an earlier opening of 9am, to cater for early morning visitors.

Management at the restaurant and hotel, which has 12 guest rooms, told the council’s licensing standards officer that the move would allow it to serve “non-residents through a demand due to the location, character of the premises and the patrons it attracts”.

A report to East Lothian Licensing Board later this week will see its licensing officer ask members to impose a condition on the new hours, if approved, that will limit the number of alcoholic drinks each customer can be served between 9am to 11am to two each. It will also limit the types of alcohol served to drinks by the glass not bottle and insist they are provided only with a ‘substantive meal’.

Tom Kitchin's East Lothian restaurant has applied for permission to serve alcohol at breakfast time (Photo: PA)

Opened in 2018, The Bonnie Badger is the first restaurant with rooms opened by Tom Kitchin and his wife Michaela.

The earlier licensing hours would mean the restaurant would be able to serve alcohol from 9am to 11pm Mondays to Wednesdays and 9am to 1am Thursdays to Saturdays with a midnight closing time on Sundays. Police Scotland have lodged no objections to the change of hours.

In January this year the board granted a similar change on operating hours to an establishment in North Berwick leading to a debate over what constituted a ‘substantive meal’.