Noto
Edinburgh restaurant supremo Stuart Ralston has a few Bib Gourmand hotspots in the city, including the small but perfectly formed Noto. Named after Ralston’s New York roomie, during his long tenure in the Big Apple, it offers flavour-packed seasonal small plates fusing Asian and New York influences. Expect dishes such as North Sea crab with seaweed brioche and beef tartare finished with black garlic and a yuzukoshi egg. Help it all down with a raft of tipples, from small domaine wine producers to bespoke cocktails.
47a Thistle Street, New Town
noto
Dogstar
Set just off Leith’s main drag, Dogstar is worth the slight detour. Michelin-starred chef James Murray maximises seasonal Scottish fare in this fuss-free modern European restaurant. Expect inventive and beautifully plated up dishes such as mackerel toast with costoluto tomato (a heavily ribbed Italian variety, fyi) and new-season garlic or gnocchi with pheasant back mushrooms, aged parmesan and sea aster.
17 Portland Place, Leith
dogstarleith.com
Bloom Coffee + Bagels
What could be more New York than good coffee and bagels? Except here you’re tucking in along Edinburgh’s Royal Mile in a green-painted cafe with bottle green tiles inside. From classic cream cheese to pizza-filled and sweet cinnamon bagels, you’re gonna get hooked. If you’re on a health kick, snaffle a life-enhancing matcha smoothie.
87 High St, Old Town
bloomcoffeeandbagels
The Lookout
There’s no question that the contemporary Calton Cafe, named after the hill it sits on, enjoys one of the finest restaurant views in Edinburgh, with floor-to-ceiling windows bringing views of Regent Bridge. All-day dining means chasing a breakfast Haggis toastie with a Scottish smoked salmon crumpet for lunch and a Scottish flat iron steak with chimichurri for dinner. Go later for the best city sunset.
Calton Hill, city centre
cafecalton
The Captain Darling
Scottish fine dining using seasonal local produce, served in a modern pub-style setting – albeit in an elegant Georgian townhouse – means classics with a nifty twist, such as haggis croquettes. Then there’s coal-roasted leeks, Pecorino Romano and vinaigrette, smoked sausage with grain mustard sauce and sauerkraut. Those of a certain age will recognise the name from a beloved character in the BBC sitcom Blackadder, which lets you know the atmos is going to be relaxed.
16-18 Hamilton Place, Stockbridge
thecaptaindarling
The Cottage at Royal Terrace
The magical setting of the Royal Terrace Gardens, once home to a popular restaurant called the Gardener’s Cottage, funnily enough, is now called The Cottage at Royal Terrace. Keeping up? The former 19th-century gardener’s cottage is a very short stroll from the east end of the city centre. Across an elegant and modern dining space, with a semi-open kitchen, table-sharing is very much the order for sampling homegrown ingredients on a good value tasting menu that puts the local in local. Much of the ingredients are picked from the venue’s own cottage garden, and Scottish wines grace the menu.
Royal Terrace Gardens, 1 London Road, New Town,
thecottageatroyalterrace
Ting Thai Caravan
Family-run by Ting and Ae Tapparat, Ting Thai Caravan opened as a festival-only pop-up in 2012, when Thai food was still a relatively unknown quantity in the capital. Now their informal but elegant café by Edinburgh University is a bustling spot, where wholesome pad Thai and fragrant massaman curry is served in cardboard cartons. Their success has led to a second branch in the West End, and the South Asian, slightly more formal Saboteur on the same block as the original.
8-9 Teviot Place; 55-57 Lothian Road
tingthai-caravan.com
Montrose
Close to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, this lovely 19th-century building houses a restaurant and wine bar with pedigree from the owners of Michelin-starred Timberyard. The elegant dining space with linen-draped walls is above the pared-back stone-walled bar area. Clever seasonally-inspired dishes such as mussel tacos with wild leek and green tomatoes and goat belly with bulgar wheat and aubergine start with homemade sourdough bread with nduja butter.
1-7 Montrose Terrace, Abbeyhill
montrose
The Little Chartroom
With a reputation that has already extended far beyond the city since it opened in 2018, the Little Chartroom is a smart but not exactly ostentatious shopfront dining room on Leith Walk, one of Edinburgh’s busiest and most up-and-coming thoroughfares. Its married patrons are veterans of the city’s Kitchin and Castle Terrace, and together they’ve created a modest 18-cover restaurant which blends French and British influences into sublime lunch and dinner menus.
30 Albert Place, Leith
thelittlechartroom.com
Maki & Ramen
Having grown to five city centre restaurants – although it made it to Glasgow faster than Leith or Stockbridge, which still aren’t covered – the Maki & Ramen Japanese mini-chain includes a spacious Fountainbridge bar, a small Southside space with bench seats around the wall, and everything in between. The sushi is fresh and substantial, the gyoza and spring rolls are moist and crispy, and the fully-loaded bowls of ramen (meaty or otherwise) are hot and refreshing.
13 West Richmond Street; 75 Nicolson Street; 97-101 Fountainbridge; 37 Leith Street; 29-30 South Bridge
makiramen.com
The Table
An intriguing and unique fine dining experience in the heart of the New Town, the Table is just that – one single marble table facing the open kitchen, where diners can book up to 24 hours in advance, and share a singular seven-course meal spent interacting with the chefs and their fellow diners while it’s prepared. The menu is European with a Scottish leaning (rabbit with turnip, pine nut and date is an example dish), and parties of between two and eight are welcome.
3a Dundas Street, New Town
thetableedinburgh.com
Restaurant Martin Wishart
Trained under chefs including Albert Roux, Michel Roux Jr and Marco Pierre White, Martin Wishart is one of the two chef-patrons – the other being Tom Kitchin – whose Michelin-starred restaurants have boosted the reputation of the Shore area over the past two decades. Wishart’s establishment has held its star for exactly 20 years by 2020, and proudly uses Scottish produce including Borders deer and Orkney halibut in an elegant tasting menu.
54 The Shore, Leith
restaurantmartinwishart.co.uk
Mother India’s Café
Founded in Glasgow, ‘Indian tapas’ restaurant Mother India’s Café has nonetheless established itself as one of the busiest and most well-loved places to find a range of foods from the Subcontinent in Edinburgh. Popular with lunchtime tourists, evening parties and all points in between, the smaller dishes – including breads, dosas, vegan okra and potatoes, and a range of seafood, chicken and lamb – can be enjoyed and shared among a group.
3-5 Infirmary Street, Old Town
motherindia
On Bap
Small, unassuming, yet inevitably packed out with students all evening, the informal On Bap is a frontrunner in the race to be the best of Edinburgh’s ever-more-thriving Korean restaurant scene. The first and clearest test is passed with some outstanding Korean fried chicken, served with either sweet chilli or honey and soy sauce, and followed up, if you have room, with jjigae stew, chicken teriyaki on rice, or some signature, spicy meat, rice and shredded vegetable bibimbap.
57 Clerk Street, Newington
Spitaki Greek Taverna
A neighbourhood restaurant that’s close enough to town to reach with a short stroll, Spitaki is an oddly-shaped two-storey place which nevertheless manages to feel as warm and cosy as that favourite Greek restaurant you find on holiday. The menu is modest but perfectly formed, including meaty souvlaki and pork chops, rich and fulsome taramasalata, grilled octopus, baked feta and fresh Greek salads.
133-135 East Claremont Street, Bonnington
spitaki.co.uk
Timberyard
The sparse industrial space that houses Timberyard was known to generations of Edinburgh residents as just that – a timber merchant. Now, a family of experienced restaurateurs have turned it into a proper destination, the sort of place you could plan a whole trip around, never mind an evening. Like many other restaurants in the city, it wears its Scottishness on its sleeve; unlike many of them, it does so with class. Ingredients from the country’s natural larder are served with minimal fuss and Scandi-inspired twists – so expect plenty of foraging, pickling and smoking. Oh, and it is a Michelin starred restaurant to boot.
10 Lady Lawson St, Old Town
timberyard