Leith, Italian Restaurant Guide

“The best choice of wine anywhere” is the main reason to visit the Caffè Bar at the rear of this famous deli and wine merchants (est. 1934) where any of the “extensive range of bottles from the shop” is available to accompany a meal for super-modest (£6) corkage. By comparison, the food is very straightforward, but provides dependable sustenance from breakfast onwards.

2023 Review: This “busy and atmospheric” restaurant with “reliably excellent pasta dishes” (plus, unusually, ‘full Scottish breakfasts’) was opened almost 20 years ago in a former banking hall by Victor Contini, whose family has brought their Italian heritage to bear on the Scottish food scene for more than a century. The venue’s success has led to further openings, at the Scottish National Gallery and in Cannonball House, next door to Edinburgh Castle.

2023 Review: “Amazing Italian cooking using Scottish produce – impeccable – and with outstanding service” inspires excellent feedback on this stylish and moodily decorated New Town site. It was opened in mid 2021 by Stefano Pieraccini of the Rocca Group in premises vacated by Martin Wishart’s The Honour (RIP).

2021 Review: “Making other fine dining establishments in town look somewhat staid, out of touch and overpriced” – this April 2018 newcomer is “superb”, and some would say “the best restaurant to have opened in Edinburgh in recent times”. “A charismatic space” with “splendid service” – “the reference on its website to ‘progressive Italian dining’ is accurate” and the modern cuisine is “outstanding” – “go downstairs to see the kitchen in action”. To match the fine cooking there’s “an exceptional, mostly Italian, wine list”.

2021 Review: This “stylish and relaxed” Italian wine bar and restaurant occupies a basement in the Old Town, and provides a “guaranteed night out” with “high-class food” and in particular an “excellent wine list” – “under the masterly direction of maître d’ Silvio Praino”. Part of the Vittoria group owned by a branch of the Italo-Scottish Crolla clan, it celebrates its 10th anniversary last year.