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Food and drink
in Edinburgh.

It’s 20:05 in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh

Where to eat in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is a wonderful city to eat in. There are restaurants with Michelin stars on the Shore at Leith, candlelit dining rooms by the castle and small plates in New Town basements. Its speciality coffee roasters and scratch bakeries are excellent, and its old pubs serve good food with real ale. Every neighbourhood has its favourites, from Stockbridge to Bruntsfield. Book ahead for dinner, especially in August.

CafésRestaurantsBarsCoffeePubsBakeriesVegetarianPizza & Italian
Place of the day19 hours ago

Stramash.

A live music bar in an old church on the Cowgate, with bands every night until three in the morning and a ceilidh every Wednesday.

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Open now19 hours agoEdinburghThe Lioness of LeithRestaurantEdinburghBrowns Brasserie & BarRestaurantEdinburghNightcapRestaurantEdinburgh56 NorthRestaurantEdinburghTeuchters LandingRestaurantEdinburghThe StreetRestaurant

Open right now.

At 20:05, by their own hours. Ring ahead before the drive.

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Did you know19 hours ago

The espresso machine at Brew Lab in Edinburgh cost about as much as a small car.

Its espresso machine, a hand-built Slayer from Seattle, was then one of only three in the UK, and cost about as much as a small car.

See Origin Coffee, South College Street · Edinburgh
From the magazine19 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 04Issue 04Spring / Summer 2022

Jessica Elliott Dennison, the cookbook writer behind Elliott's Kitchen on Sciennes Road in Edinburgh, trains her new staff to 'chop like you're drunk'.

Jess wants food to look loose and natural, as if the ingredients have just fallen onto the plate, so she would never perfectly cube a tomato. London-born, she worked in product and brand development for Jamie Oliver before opening Elliott's in summer 2018, in a quiet residential street beside the Meadows. Recipes from her cookbooks, among them Salad Feasts, Tin Can Magic and Lazy Baking, appear on the menu, from porridge rolls filled with eggs at breakfast to soup and seasonal salads at lunch. She wants it to feel like an extension of her own home, and she prides herself on remembering customers' names, and those of their children and dogs.

Read the full story in Issue 04
Food and drink18 hours ago

Pickles.

A cosy wine bar on Broughton Street of Scottish cheese and meat platters, chutneys and pickles, wine and cider, with no bookings taken.

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From our guide18 hours ago

Golden Hare Books.

Superb indie bookshop with close to 2,000 title on the shelves at any one time, and a full programme of events and author talks.

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Food and drink18 hours ago

Howies Victoria Street.

A Scottish restaurant on curving Victoria Street, part of Howies, which has cooked seasonal Scottish produce in Edinburgh since 1990.

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From The Best of EdinburghThe Best of Edinburgh18 hours agoEdinburgh101 BakeryCafeEdinburghMary's Milk BarCafeEdinburghDean VillageAttractionEdinburghRazzoRestaurantEdinburghArthur’s SeatAttractionEdinburghThe MeadowsAttraction

Inside 101 Bakery: Southside Sweet Fix with Rosanna

Rosanna's 101 Bakery in Edinburgh's Southside, loved for its cinnamon buns and salted chocolate chip cookies, and her own picks for a good day out in the city.

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From our Edinburgh guide17 hours ago

The Canny Man's, a pub in Morningside in Edinburgh, was once famous for a landlord who would not serve anyone whose look he didn't like.

The pub has been an Edinburgh institution since 1871, and it is still family-run and independent, a proper old-fashioned bar. In the days of that curmudgeonly landlord, you had to pass his eye before you got a drink. The welcome is far warmer now, and the Canny Man's is open to all. It is best known for its Bloody Marys, and the chef Rick Stein went as far as to call it 'the best pub in the world'. So a bar that once turned people away at a glance has won about the highest praise a pub can get.

See The Canny Man’s · Edinburgh
Just opened17 hours ago

Understory has opened in the vaults under Rutland Street, in Edinburgh's West End.

It calls itself a five-star dive bar: drinks made from scratch in a lab on site, a few small plates, and late nights at the weekend. It is run by Bramble's former manager with the head of bars at the Rutland Hotel upstairs.

Photograph: Phill Gillespie on Google MapsRead about it
Did you know17 hours ago

Black bun, the rich fruit cake in pastry eaten in Scotland at Hogmanay, began as a Twelfth Night cake with a bean hidden inside it.

Whoever found the bean became king or queen for the evening, and tradition has it that Mary, Queen of Scots brought the custom with her when she came home from France. At Christmas in 1563 or 1564 she held a ball at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, and when one of her ladies, Mary Fleming, found the bean, she was dressed in the Queen's own clothes as her prize. Christmas was later banned in Scotland after the Reformation, and the cake moved to the New Year. A black bun given at Hogmanay came to mean that the household would not go hungry in the year ahead.

See Palace of Holyroodhouse · Edinburgh
From our guide17 hours ago

Cairngorm Coffee Roasters.

With two central outlets, this is where to come for a caffeine fix that puts quality first. As its name suggests, the business began life in the Cairngorms.

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