Real Guides: Edinburgh, Scotland by Alex Cohen
Scotland's Gothic beauty through the eyes of a local writer.
If you’ve never been to Edinburgh, beware because once you finally visit you’ll fall totally head over heels. It is an intoxicating place. The Gothic architecture is both haunting and romantic. I personally believe the city, and Scotland as a whole, is best in the summer. The longer days bring out a certain magic that is hard to describe. Luckily, we have been blessed with a guide to this beautiful city through the eyes of local writer Alex Cohen. His guide to Edinburgh is so vivid you’ll feel as though you are there already, pint of Guinness in hand.
Edinburgh, Scotland by Alex Cohen
I’m a freelance writer living in London. While I’m not a native Edinburgher — if you ignore Meryl Streep, I’m the most famous person from Summit, New Jersey — I grew up in Scotland’s capital, which was just named the best city in the world by Alex Cohen (me).
If you’d like more recommendations or want to express outrage at something I’ve written, you can find me at @alx1ndr on Instagram, or email me alexanderdcohen@gmail.com
To eat:
Rhubarb (and some other fancy places)
If you’re in the market for delicate, inventive and expensive cooking, you will find it. Edinburgh is packed to the gills with neutral-toned restaurants trading under mononyms that you’ll probably pronounce wrong. Fhior, Aizle, Eorna and Noto may sound like things Bjork would blurt out in a moment of surprise, but they’re great places to sample the best of Scotland’s unreasonably good produce.
Rhubarb is not neutral, nor is it delicate. It’s a baroque fever-dream set in a 17th-century house that has played host to Benjamin Franklin, David Hume, and — whenever I want to surround myself with red velvet — me. The menu isn’t molecular, but it isn’t stuffy, either. If you want ponzu-cured trout, you can have it. If you want a slab of no-nonsense Angus beef, you can have that, too. If, like me, you don’t eat meat, I can vouch for the interesting vegetarian options that often complement the inevitable cauliflower steak.
There’s no dress code, but it’s fun to embrace the theatre of it all — and a lot of people do dress up. Get there early or stay late to have drinks in one of their opulent antechambers, where you can pretend to brood over the coming war with France by a roaring fire.
The Ship on the Shore, Storrie’s and Orinoco
Great seafood is the silver lining that comes with being blasted by North Sea weather systems year-round. A good place to make the most of it is The Ship on the Shore in Leith.
They’re famous for their platters, and they will put an oyster in a shot of Guinness for you if you ask them to. It sounds gross, but one of their waiters told me to try it (a prank?) and I’ve never looked back. I wouldn’t get fish and chips here, though. Go to The Fishmarket in Newhaven or The Chippy by Spencer on Broughton Street for deep fried sea life.
Don’t get dessert at The Ship on the Shore, either — head back into town via Leith Walk. Stop at the legendary Storrie’s Bakery for a pastry and service that can best be described as “begrudging”. Waddle a little further to grab a box of tequeños with dulce de leche from Venezuelan takeaway Orinoco, then start planning your upcoming gastric bypass.
French food made with Scottish ingredients by a French-Scottish family. England’s opps are quite literally cooking on this one.
Sit by the floor-to-ceiling windows, swirl a glass of wine around a bit, and work your way through terrines, tartares, bourguignons and prunes that have soaked in Armagnac for a year. It will become very obvious why we borrow terms like ambiance and joie de vivre from France.
L’escargot Bleu is more relaxed than the also-great Cafe St. Honoré. It’s just above pavement-level on Broughton Street, which is also home to The Barony — a candlelit pub that you should absolutely visit once you’ve polished off your cheese course.
It’s a gastropub, but hear me out! The Scran and Scallie is one of the better places to get British fare in Edinburgh. They’re known for their steak pie and they usually have haggis, if that’s something you need to tick off your Scotland bucket list (you should).
If you’re exploring Stockbridge (you also should), it’s a good place for lunch. Twelve Triangles is a popular bakery right next door.
Edinburgh doesn’t have much in common with Chongqing — aside from genuinely good hotpot. IN MY OPINION, Xiangbala blows places like Haidilao and Happy Lamb out of the water. Are the ingredients fresh? Who knows! Does that matter? Not if you dunk them in nuclear broth and chase it all with a Tsingtao!
This is probably my favourite restaurant in Edinburgh, and, like Yamato (easily the best Japanese restaurant in the city), one of its biggest culinary surprises.
It’s cash-only, and they’ll throw in a bit of off-menu cake for dessert if you ask for it. Offset the numbing spice at Malone’s, a nearby pub that is the only place in Edinburgh serving Tank Tennent’s (a special version of Scotland’s most popular beer).
To drink:
Up the Royal Mile
The Waverley Bar and the Jolly Judge
Go to The Waverley on Sunday between 3pm and 6pm to hear Scottish and Irish folk music. Sandy Bell’s is a more popular folk venue, but The Waverley attracts some of the city’s most famous traditional musicians. It’s also easier to get a seat at the Waverley, despite its proximity to the Royal Mile.
It’s worth planning a day around this. There are few greater pleasures to be had in Edinburgh than gulping a lukewarm pint to the strains of someone that’s shit-hot on a mandolin or fiddle.
Walk up the Royal Mile from the Waverley, and keep an eye out for a sign marked “The Jolly Judge”. Follow it down a narrow alley, and you’ll find another gem amongst the tourist traps along the Mile. It’s an especially cosy place to visit on a cold or rainy day, and it’s right next to The Writers’ Museum — an under-visited, free-to-enter shrine to Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott.
Seat-hopping in the New Town
Kay’s, Starbar and The Barony
Kay’s Bar is a jewel box of a pub hidden on a side street in the New Town, and it’s often packed with locals. It has a coal fire, a cosy back room with a tattered Scrabble board, and lovely bar staff. There seems to be a quota dictating that at least one dog and one old man be present at all times.
If Kay’s is full, Starbar is a similarly well-hidden bolthole on the other side of the New Town. It’s more raucous than quaint, and sometimes you have to hunt around a bit for the bartender (hint: they’re smoking in the garden), but that is part of its charm.
If that’s full, the aforementioned Barony Bar on nearby Broughton Street rivals Kay’s for the title of “Alex’s favourite pub”. It’s replete with mahogany, old brewery mirrors and twinkling lights, making it about as romantic as pubs can get — which, it turns out, is “quite”.
Last night was a movieee
Brass Monkey, The Cameo, Bennet’s Bar, The Wildcat and The Ventoux
Do you like to recline while drinking? Good news! Brass Monkey’s back room is full of futons, and they screen movies there in the afternoons.
For even more cinematic swilling, I like The Cameo, which is a well-preserved theatre built in 1914. It has its own pub, where you can drink in uncomfortable silence after watching Challengers with your parents.
If you’d prefer to get out of there ASAP, Bennet’s Bar across the street is an iconic Victorian pub. A few more minutes away is a fun cocktail bar called The Wildcat, which is “the home of the £5 negroni”, or The Ventoux — a slightly less sultry (but more lively) cycling-themed bar with a leaky-looking fishtank.
Where to drink whisky
Alongside golf, scowling and the television, whisky is one of Scotland’s most popular inventions. Appropriately, there are hundreds of places to drink it in Edinburgh.
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s Kaleidoscope Bar is open to non-members. Counterintuitively, I’d recommend it if you don’t really like whisky, but want to try it while you’re in Scotland. That’s because their bartenders are incredible. Tell them what you do like, and they will manage to find a whisky parallel. The Register Club at the top of the Edinburgh Grand building isn’t far away — it’s got interesting whisky and nicer cocktails if you’re visiting with hard-line whisky deniers.
If you’re in Leith, Teuchter’s Landing has an incredible library of bottles. Order something specific, or pay them something like £5 to throw a wooden ring at their bar. Land it around the neck of any whisky, and they will pour you some. Miss, and they will pour you something called Sheep Dip. If it’s a nice day, the pub also has a huge beer garden and a canal barge covered in benches.
At some point in your visit, you’ll probably be on Victoria Street. It’s very photogenic, despite the rash of Harry Potter shops that have broken out along it. While you’re there, I’d recommend modelling your new Gryffindor scarf in the Bow Bar, which has a great whisky collection.
To buy:
Where to buy whisky
There are better ways to waste money than overpaying for bottles of spicy brown liquid. Edinburgh attracts a lot of tourists, and they’re helping the city’s whisky salesmen pay for their second homes.
Despite sounding like a textbook tourist trap, Royal Mile Whiskies charges very fair prices — as does its sister shop, Drinkmonger. Beerhive, Cork & Cask, and Cadenhead’s are also worth visiting.
Where to buy books
If you’d rather nourish your brain cells than destroy them, Edinburgh is replete with fantastic bookshops and literary history.
Just down the road from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthplace (and a statue of Sherlock Holmes) Topping & Company is a two-story temple to books with especially good art, nature and travel sections. If you loiter long enough, they’ll offer you a free coffee or tea to sit and read with.
A few minutes away from Topping are the symbiotic McNaughtan’s and Typewronger, sharing a basement on Leith Walk. McNaughtan’s is stacked with antique and second-hand books, and Typewronger is somewhere between a bookstore, a typewriter repair shop, and an independent publisher. You should visit both.
Close to the Grassmarket is Armchair Books, which is a great place to shop if you are a rabbit and miss the confines of your warren. It’s a great bookshop, but I personally prefer Edinburgh Books. It’s a thirty second walk away from Armchair, and usually has a better selection and weird music on the speakers. Another underrated secondhand bookshop is the Shelter charity shop on Raeburn Place. It’s not that pretty inside, but they often have really good stuff and don’t charge a lot for it at all.
The Waterstone’s on Princes Street isn’t anything extraordinary shopping-wise, but its cafe has an incredible view of Edinburgh Castle. If you’re visiting the nearby National Gallery, it’s a great place to relax afterwards and loudly opine about the art you’ve seen.
Where to buy clothes
I don’t think anyone wants fashion tips from someone who has been wearing the same rotation of button-down shirts since 2020, but I feel compelled to mention that I got all of those shirts at Armstrongs Vintage on Cockburn Street (stop it) and the Grassmarket.
If you can only visit one, I’d go to the latter – it’s an Edinburgh institution where you’ll find everything from t-shirts to kilts, cavalry uniforms, and caftans. And button-down shirts.
What to do
For a relatively small city, Edinburgh has an embarrassment of activities, institutions and events year-round.
To get the obvious ones out of the way: if you’re here in August, go to The Fringe and the book festival. The Fringe needs a guide of its own, so let’s leave it at that. If you’re here in December, you might as well go to the Christmas markets, which are very touristy, very fun and — you guessed it — very German.
If you like art
It’s hard to go wrong with the National Gallery’s incredible collection, but I think the lesser-visited National Portrait Gallery is even cooler. Along with all the portraits and a rotating photo exhibition, it’s got an incredible Neo-Gothic entrance hall and a Victorian library where you can see life and death masks of Isaac Newton, John Keats, and Edinburgh’s most famous criminals. There is also a portrait of Tilda Swinton.
It’s not a museum or gallery, but if you’re in town when Lyon & Turnbull are hosting an auction preview, you should go. Their saleroom is beautiful, and a lot of Edinburgh natives have never been inside. A few blocks away is Dundas Street, which hosts some of Edinburgh’s king-making commercial galleries. The Fine Art Society is my favourite.
If you’re a photography fan, visit Stills on Cockburn Street (stop it). Their exhibitions are always good, and – like the contemporary Fruitmarket Gallery around the corner and all the other museums I’ve mentioned — it’s free.
If you like history
It’s hard not to recommend Edinburgh Castle. That isn’t very Real Guides of me, but it is kind of essential if you’re interested in the city’s history. At the very least, you can visit the esplanade at the front of the castle for free to get great views of the city, or pretend you are laying siege to my hometown.
Just down the Royal Mile from the castle is St. Giles’ Cathedral, which is (usually) free to enter and (sometimes) hosts afternoon and evening concerts. Try to get into the Thistle Chapel right at the back of St. Giles’, which is full of intricately-carved wood and looks as if it could host a Dark Souls boss fight.
Also on the Royal Mile is Mary King’s Close, an Old Town alleyway that’s now buried underground. You can get guided tours of it. They will tell you that it is absolutely brimming with ghosts, and that just last week, someone on the tour fainted. It’s actually kind of scary and it’s a really good way to learn about Edinburgh’s history of plagues, witch trials, and open sewers :)
If you like being outside
Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t rain all the time in Edinburgh. That’s Glasgow you’re thinking of. It can be pretty chilly, but that’s just an excuse to buy a nice cable-knit sweater and model it on…
Calton Hill. While you shouldn’t miss Arthur’s Seat — a deservedly popular hillwalk with some of the best panoramas going — Calton Hill presents you with a quick, steep staircase in the middle of the city, and rewards you with incredible views and a great place to watch the sunset. It’s also home to an unfinished National Monument, which looks like half a Parthenon.
Even if you don’t play golf, it’s fun to bring your new cable-knit sweater to The Golf Tavern in Bruntsfield. There, you can rent a couple of clubs, buy a pint of something, and play as many holes as you want on the Bruntsfield Links pitch and putt (which also has a great view of Arthur’s Seat). It doesn’t matter if you’re bad or if you hit a car. They shouldn’t have parked there.
Portobello is Edinburgh’s beach town, and if you’re into swimming in the North Sea, be my guest. The town itself has plenty of nice cafes to shiver in afterwards. If you’ve got a bit more time, North Berwick is a pretty seaside town about 30 minutes away by train.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend a walk through Stockbridge, my favourite part of the city. It’s like a little village within Edinburgh, and it’s full of cafes, restaurants, and dogs. Go on a Sunday to visit the market, get a coffee, and wander up and down Raeburn Place. From there, you can head into Inverleith Park, visit Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens (free!), or walk along the Water of Leith to Deane Village — an enclave of pretty houses in a hollow hidden beneath the city centre.
All photographs by Alessandra De Costanzo.