Eating and drinking in
Edinburgh.
Eating out in Edinburgh has undergone quite a change in recent years with the appearance of Restaurants and Cafes featuring food from all parts of the world. It wasn't too long ago that if you felt like trying something that wasn't European, Chinese or Indian, you were in for quite a search.
Nowadays the choice is much wider, there are Thai, Japanese, Malay, Vietnamese, Egyptian and God knows what else (even Mongolian!).
I don't intend to use this page to give too many specific recommendations, apart from anything else I haven't tried too many of these restaurants myself and the food scene here seems to change too quickly for me to keep up to date.
The fashionable area at the moment as far as eating out is concerned is the port of Leith. All the old warehouses and Office buildings, which had fallen into disuse, are now being re-furbished and turned into apartment blocks and even the Scottish office have built a huge new building, (luckily it's inside the actual Dock area and not too intrusive). All this up-market development has also brought an increase in places for these new inhabitants to eat and drink, so if you're not quite certain what type of meal you really feel like, the best move is to go down to the Shore or Dock place and wander round comparing menus until you decide which you fancy. I would say however that it's best to stick to the main streets, the smaller side streets are still pretty much the haunts of the locals, you're very unlikely to have any trouble, but there's not much there to attract casual visitors.
The City centre also boasts a fair range of restaurants from cheap and cheerful to expensive and formal, with the large hotels as usual tending towards the more up-market tastes. For a good meal at reasonable prices and a friendly (if sometimes noisy) atmosphere, I can recommend the Pierre Victoire restaurants (there are several), Chez Jules, the Waterfront winebar, Fishers, and the Marinette (but there are probably plenty more that I haven't tried myself). If you feel that a visit should include a sample of the local cuisine then try Stac Polly (there are two) or Dubh Prais (pronounced doo pray). For the person with more money and a wish for some serious cuisine then the Witchery by the Castle or Skippers or the Waterside in Haddington might fit the bill. If it's scenic views whilst eating that you particularly fancy then the Tower restaurant on top of the new extension to the Royal Museum in Chambers Street might be your best bet.
As I said at the beginning of this page, I haven't tried all the restaurants in Edinburgh and I'm no Food critic, I'm a taxi-driver. The restaurants I've mentioned are just some of those that I've enjoyed myself or had strongly recommended by passengers, if you do come to Edinburgh and are looking for somewhere to eat there are several good food guides available and I'm sure that hotel staff and friends would mention a number that I've missed.
When it comes to the subject of recommending places to drink, I'm afraid that I'm a bit out of practise - I used to consider myself something of an expert on Edinburgh's pubs but since I started to drive a taxi for a living I've become almost tee-total as keeping my driving license clean became a top priority. Luckily there are some people who do not have the same problem and if you look in any of the larger Bookshops you can find several small books and pamphlets which do their best to describe most of the drinking establishments in Edinburgh (or at least those worth describing).
As a general rule, the closer to the centre of the city, the more expensive the drink. There are, of course, exceptions to this - but they are few. A quick look at the clientele in the bar will give any experienced drinker a good idea of what to expect, if it is full of young posers trying to impress the opposite sex and drinking whichever imported beer is fashionable at the moment ( to be drunk straight from the bottle, so that everyone can see the label), or if there are crowds of slightly older posers drinking fruit or ice cubes to the sound of mobile phones, then run like hell!
