Duddingston - Restaurant Guide

“A truly unique dining experience with highly original food cooked to an exceptional standard” – that’s the verdict, albeit on limited feedback, on chef-patron Tyler King’s 12-seat venue on the city’s South Side. You sit in candle-light at one of six tables, and are advised to allow two and half hours for a surprise menu that costs £160 per person. Fans consider it “Edinburgh’s best, with knowledgeable staff who really buy into the offering, all alongside a wine list with a keen focus on sustainability, and organic and biodynamic farming”. More reports please!

A leading light of vegetarian cuisine in Edinburgh for more than two decades – this “enjoyable but noisy” outfit off Holyrood Road takes its cues from around the world (as in the signature smoked tofu with Korean cucumber pickle, Italian risotto alla Norma or Mexican bean chilli) or closer to home (double-baked smoked Isle of Kintyre cheese pudding) – “I go there because the food’s delicious and the service lovely, not because it’s vegetarian”. It also offers vegan and gluten-free options.

“Off the scale for the quality you receive”, say fans of Paul & Lisa Wedgwood’s fixture, which first opened in a basement on the Royal Mile in 2007. Scottish sourcing is a key feature of the menus: both the à la carte, or also the more culinarily exotic tasting menu which provides a ‘Wee Tour of Scotland’ in nine-to-ten courses for £85: dishes such as Sea Trout, new potato, peppers, sea vegetables, and cherry tomato or Avon valley roe deer loin, black pudding & bone marrow, neeps, cabbage, and mushrooms.

“First-rate Indian tapas coupled with brisk-but-not-brusque service” is the pleasing offer at this “efficiently run” offshoot of the well-known Glasgow group. There’s “often a slight twist to the dishes to elevate your eating experience further”, and it’s “such good value, especially the lunchtime set menu”.

2024 Review: Jean-Michel Gauffre is the mastermind behind this “pleasing, modest French establishment”, in the Old Town; a firm fixture since its launch in 2001, it turns out hearty Gallic cooking with a particular focus on the Languedoc, alongside an excellent value lunchtime ‘Menu du Jour’.

“Authentic Italian cooking at the back of a glorious deli” and wine merchant is the recipe behind the simple café attached to this “very long-established Edinburgh favourite” – est. 1934, and “perhaps a bit out of the way”, but the “ideal spot for a lunch and browse round the groaning shelves”. The “good value menu” includes some “excellent” items (the “fritto misto, crab linguini and ragu stood out”), and you can’t knock their cheese: as of 2024, they’ve been a royal supplier to His Majesty King Charles III, no less.

“Good solid restaurants like this deserve our support” – a “small but friendly” New Town bistro, overseen by Marcelline Levicky, that has been around forever and turns out pitch-perfect Gallic cooking (onion soup, rabbit pies, moules) that also comes at a “great price”. While that price has crept up slowly over the years, it remains a steal: the two-course lunch is £20.90, the two-course dinner £34.50.

Executive pastry chef Ross Sneddon (ex-of Claridge’s) is, say fans, “the best in the country so it is no wonder the afternoon tea is simply outstanding” at what they hail as “Edinburgh’s best hotel by miles”. While a visit to its glass-domed, leafy lounge is “more performance art than afternoon tea” – all “Victorian grandeur, hushed conversations” and “harpist serenading guests”, it’s “one of those bucket-list experiences for wealthy tourists” – there’s no doubting the “to-die-for patisserie”.

The No 2 restaurant in this “fantastic hotel” – “isn’t ground-breaking but it is useful, as a hotel restaurant should be”. Fans say its classic French cooking is “better than normally found with a captive audience… perhaps because it has to be with so many other options close by”.

2022 Review: MasterChef: The Professionals winner Gary Maclean opened his first restaurant in summer 2021 on the fourth floor of the Bonnie & Wild Marketplace: Edinburgh's first food hall in St James Quarter. The menu champions sustainable Scottish seafood, with the ‘award-winning Arbroath Smokies’ a signature dish.

“Fun but fully priced” would be a fair overview of this funky fusion duo – outposts of a glossy US-based chain that started in NYC. The original is found at the top of one of West Europe’s fastest lifts, whisking you to the glamorous 38th floor of the Heron Tower (adjacent to Duck & Waffle, see also), complete with a stylish cocktail lounge and outside terrace. Its newer sibling opened in 2018: “it’s above the market in Covent Garden which is a great location/space (regardless of what currently occupies it!)”. In both spots, all reports agree its luxurious Latino-meets-Japanese bites are super-moreish and “consistently good”. Prices though are OTT, especially as “you can feel like you are in a machine, and they churn out huge numbers of covers so service feels rushed. And it’s big, it’s loud, feels like a bun fight!!” (“Sushi Samba was my 18-year-old daughter’s choice and was not as bad as I feared, but not particularly stand-out either”.)

2023 Review: This “buzzing and reliable” home-grown homage to New York-style pizza sells its “great” versions by the slice – “the slices are enormous and one will suffice most people” – in four outlets with a “quirky vibe and music (American rock and hip-hop)”. “Their motto is branded on every cup and menu: ‘Death Before Dominos’!”

2022 Review: Launched in July 2021, Scotland’s largest food hall (and Edinburgh’s first) features a range of chef-led food stalls and restaurants. These include The Gannet East, Creel Caught, Erpingham House, El Perro Negro, east PIZZAS, Broken Clock, Joelato, Salt & Chilli Oriental and CHIX. Also houses Inverarity Morton’s boutique bottleshop.

Baking for one minute at 470°C to create aerated, blistered crusts is part of the formula of Ivan Georgiev’s Leith hotspot, lauded by local aficionados of Neapolitan pizza since its opening in 2019. In March 2025, he also established a pitch at ESF (‘Edinburgh Street Food’).

2022 Review: In 2021, Gordon Craig and wife Lucy moved their well-rated operation of five years’ standing from Raeburn Place to this new address in the New Town, on the site of Le Roi Fou (RIP). Our feedback remains enthusiastic for its innovative use of British ingredients. “There’s a market menu, which is a steal, and full tasting options if you’re feeling hungrier. Highly recommended”.