Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Leith
Hardens guides have spent 32 years compiling reviews of the best Leith restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 82 restaurants in Leith and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Leith restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Leith Restaurants
1. Number One, Balmoral Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
1 Princes Street - EH2
Chef Matthew Sherry has now had a year at the flagship dining room of this Edinburgh landmark, which manages to be “incredibly grand and imposing” for somewhere in a windowless basement (“the tables are all so far away from each other!)”. Long known as one of Scotland’s foremost restaurants, ratings here haven’t skipped a beat despite Michelin having removed its star on the retirement of Jeff Bland. Service still “runs like clockwork”; and on the basis of the high-quality reports we receive (one such: “we have been for dinner twice in the last six months and had the seven-course set menu with matched wines both times… expensive but worth it”) the Tyre Man owes them their star back some time soon.
2. Wedgwood
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
267 Canongate - EH8
Celebrating its fifteenth year, Paul & Lisa Wedgwood’s basement restaurant is on (and partly under) the Royal Mile. Tastefully decorated, it wins strong all-round praise, especially for its competitively priced cuisine (there is a tasting menu, but also a seasonally changing à la carte option with a fair amount of choice).
3. Gardener’s Cottage
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
1 Royal Terrace Gardens, London Road - EH7
2021 Review: “The menu is fixed and you sit at one of three large tables with others” at this quirky venture, which occupies a stone cottage in Royal Terrace Gardens. You get what you’re given from a mystery tasting menu on which sustainability is to the fore, with many of the ingredients grown by Charlie the gardener. On practically all reports the food is well-rated, and they must be doing something right having last year now opened The Lookout (see also).
4. The Stockbridge
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
54 St Stephen's St - EH3
Jane Walker & chef Jason Gallagher run this traditional venue in Stockbridge, which is praised as an “intimate and special” place with “well-prepared food, plus efficient and professional service”. The only gripe this year? “some dishes seemed a bit too experimental”.
5. Aizle
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
The Garden Room in The Kimpton Hotel, 38 Charlotte Square - EH2
“A lovely setting in the atrium that’s not too formal and with a pleasant buzz” sets the scene at Stuart Ralston’s bright, glass-roofed hotel dining room (he and his team moved on from a previous venture of the same name in Newington a couple of years ago). All reports acclaim “outstandingly good and inventive cooking” from the six-course menu (going up to £105 per person in 2023 from £85) and “friendly service”.
6. Rhubarb, Prestonfield Hotel
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
Priestfield Rd - EH16
In the same stable as Edinburgh’s famous Witchery, James Thomson’s lavishly decorated hotel sits in 20 acres near Arthur’s Seat and its rococo interior “never fails to please for a romantic occasion”. The food is not centre stage, but is consistently well-rated too, with menu options including an à la carte menu, three-course ‘fine dining’ option and afternoon tea.
7. The Little Chartroom
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
14 Bonnington Road - EH6
Roberta Hall-McCarron’s Leith operation opened in 2018 and relocated to this larger location in late 2021 (the original premises now housing her other venture, Eleanore, see also) and its style is “much more ‘grown-up’ in its new home”. It delivers “amazing food and great value” from a short and enticing menu. Locals note it’s “bonkers popular… admittedly, it’s exactly the kind of restaurant you want near your house…”. (To reserve, you must leave credit card details with a £45 cancellation fee if you cancel within 24 hours of the booking).
8. The Kitchin
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
78 Commercial Street - EH6
“A truly a fantastic experience from start to finish” – Tom & Michaela’s flagship venue occupies a “buzzy” warehouse in Leith and was again Edinburgh’s most commented-on destination in our annual diners’ poll. Criticism is impressively absent: there is nothing but reams of praise for “excellent fine dining”, produced from a glass-walled kitchen whose chefs create an “amazing food journey” (with “Tom and his senior team also coming out into the dining room to talk about the dishes”). There are tasting menus for either £130 or £180, with a more conventional evening à la carte menu priced at £110 (the best bargain being the set lunch, which is half this price). “An expensive experience, but well worth it and a real treat”. “Despite a lot of competition in Edinburgh now, Kitchin holds its head up high”.
9. Restaurant Martin Wishart
French restaurant in Edinburgh
54 The Shore - EH6
“Loved it! Everything is just right” at Martin Wishart’s harbourside flagship: one of the city’s most accoladed culinary destinations, where his menus of “Frenchified Scottish ingredients” offer “decadent luxury” in “the cool, gentrified environs” of the Leith waterfront. “Every bit as good as the first time I came nearly 20 years ago”, it’s held a “Michelin star for 20 years for a reason”. It might be “slightly hushed and reverential for my (London!) tastes, but it totally deserves its accolades!”
10. Fishers Leith
Fish & seafood restaurant in Edinburgh
1 The Shore - EH6
“If you want to eat fish in Edinburgh, this is the place to go” – “a great spot at a lovely quiet location down on the dockside in Leith, and just delicious”. Set in a seventeenth-century watchtower, the “characterful restaurant” serves “really good fresh fish, simply and yet imaginatively”. The owners also run The Shore next door, and Fishers in the City.
11. Fishmarket
Fish & chips restaurant in Edinburgh
23a Pier Place - EH6
Akin to a posh chippy, this tiled, two-year-old collab between the same backers as Ondine and fish suppliers Welche’s again gets the thumbs-up – “a fab place at Newhaven Harbour that’s busy and exciting, with great fresh Scottish seafood”.
12. Favorita
Pizza restaurant in Edinburgh
325 Leith Walk - EH6
2021 Review: In Leith Walk, this “family-orientated” staple can be relied upon for “superb” wood-fired pizzas, pastas and so forth in a “buzzing atmosphere”.
13. The Walnut
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
9 Croall Place - EH7
2021 Review: This “real gem” on the road to Leith – “family-run with flair and passion” – “uses unusual cuts of locally sourced meats and seasonal produce to keep the cost of lunch to £10”. It’s “intimate and cosy, but on a hot summer’s day, sitting outside sipping wine and eating the amazing fresh food the kitchen sends out is a real treat”.
14. Valvona & Crolla
Italian restaurant in Edinburgh
19 Elm Row - EH7
“A good choice of light dishes and excellent wine list” are key features of this straightforward café. It’s famous in Auld Reekie due to the esteemed and marvellously stocked deli and wine merchants (est. 1934) that it’s part of, and which provide the victuals for a meal, served from breakfast onwards. Wine lovers: you can choose any of the hundreds of retail wines for only £6 corkage… “from super value to super Tuscans”.
15. Bell’s Diner
Burgers, etc restaurant in Edinburgh
7 St Stephen St - EH3
2022 Review: “Still knocking out great burgers with a retro feel – the relish selection harks back to the 1970s”. This “great local burger joint” in Stockbridge which celebrates its half-centenary this year is “always reliable and never changes”. “The staff are rushed off their feet, but they’re always really professional and smiley”.
16. L’Escargot Bleu
French restaurant in Edinburgh
56 Broughton St - EH1
“Like a Gallic hug”, chef-patron Fred Berkmiller’s “properly sourced old-school French cuisine” comes packaged with “Gallic good humour, impeccable service and quirky decoration in this wonderfully authentic restaurant”, “now with new wine bar underneath”. Sadly, its nearby sibling L’Escargot Blanc closed down last year after 18 years.
17. Fhior
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
36 Broughton Street - EH1
This “fun, stylish and super-friendly restaurant” from chef Scott Smith and his wife Laura has a very serious mission – to showcase ultra-seasonal Scottish ingredients, many of them grown in their own kitchen garden. The cooking is of “superb quality”, and “the tasting menu beautifully thought through, so each course feels as though it belongs after the previous one”. Fhior, meaning ‘true’ in Gaelic, is the Smiths’ follow-up to their highly regarded debut Norn, in Leith.
18. Taisteal
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
1 Forth St - EH1
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”.
19. 21212
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
3 Royal Ter - EH7
Paul Kitching’s “wonderfully exciting food” has been a highlight of Edinburgh’s dining scene for almost 15 years, served in the signature ‘formation’ of his restaurant’s name: a choice of 2 starters followed by 1 soup, a choice of 2 mains, 1 cheese and 2 desserts, the line-up changing every week. There’s a “beautifully decorated and elegant drawing room for pre- and post-dinner drinks”.
20. New Chapter
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
18 Eyre Pl. - EH3
This “popular” local from chef Maciej Szymik gives seasonal Scottish produce a modern European twist, earning general all-round approval. There’s also a spin-off brasserie in the West End: Otro.
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Hot Newcomers
Eleanore
Edinburgh British, Modern £33
The Little Chartroom
Edinburgh British, Modern £81
Open: Jun-2018
Coming Soon