Haddington Restaurant Guide

An ivy-clad outpost in golfing country from Edinburgh-based Tom & Michaela Kitchin offers “excellent food and rooms – and a great breakfast”. It’s quality bistro fare, but despite its heritage not super-fancy: eg. French Onion soup, Haggis, neeps & tatties, Lemon mousse.

2022 Review: “A very classy experience with little or no fault to find”, say fans of the Roux-branded operation at this well-known Lutyens-designed golfing hotel, which looks towards the Firth of Forth, although it again attracted only a limited volume of feedback. Also acclaimed: “a lovely country-house ambience for a perfect afternoon tea, with spot-on service”. (Albert Roux, who passed away in early 2021, had been in charge of managing the cuisine here, but now it’s handled by his son, Michel Roux Jr).

2022 Review: Overlooking the Firth of Forth, this clifftop coffeehouse overlooking Canty Bay recently took on a new head chef, Lewis Lane, ‘to take the venue in a smarter direction’. In June 2021, Gaby Soutar in The Scotsman, hailed some “impossibly gorgeous-looking” dishes here and a good selection all-round.

This old fisherman‘s inn on the historic harbourside was taken over by Jack Findlay (from Logan Thorburn, who ran it for 16 years) at the end of 2022, but it remains a cosy and traditional panelled space. Feedback in our annual diners’ poll on its traditional Franco-Scottish restaurant fare is very upbeat all-round, and in her May 2024 review The Times’s Chitra Ramaswamy acclaimed “a rare and perfect combination of warmth and formality… and the food is wonderful”.

This “absolute stalwart”, in a 17th-century watchtower by the Water of Leith, delivers “great fresh fish, beautifully cooked in a kitchen the size of a 50p piece” – “lovely staff, all very hectic, but it just works”. The flagship of a small group established more than 20 years ago, some reporters find it “slightly more relaxed than the city branch”. Top Menu Tip – “the prawn cocktail is to die for”.

The food is still of a high standard – “Italian dishes but far removed from the usual Italian restaurant fare” at this local fixture. Run by chef Daniele di Marco, wife Daniela, father Angelo and brother Stefano, service is “always efficient and friendly” and it won a number of very approving reports this year (perhaps helped by a boost from The Times’s Chitra Ramaswamy in March 2024 who “love[d] Osteria‘s resolute conventionality. It‘s been too long since I‘ve encountered butter curls in a restaurant. How retro, and delightful”).

“It’s just a shack on the port but the lobster or fish ’n’ chips are spectacular” at this venue perched on North Berwick Harbour, which is open seasonally from April to October. Their suppliers are accredited by Marine Scotland, and if you fancy a change from the national dish opt for crab tacos or chowder.

Occupying the former site of ASKR in Constitution Street, the second branch of this fish and seafood specialist originating in the New Town is from prolific chef Dean Banks, who also runs the Pompadour in Edinburgh and Haar in St Andrews.