About Us

Yes, we do vouchers at Nectar. It is one of the most straightforward things we offer, and one of my favourite things to be asked about, for a reason that has nothing to do with the transaction itself. You decide the total value. You decide what we write on it. And you decide whether you want it as a physical voucher or an electronic one. That is genuinely the whole process, and it is deliberately simple, because the actual point of a voucher has very little to do with the mec

This was our second Edinburgh Fringe at Nectar, and it looked almost nothing like the first. Nectar's birthday falls on 1 August, which means our first Fringe and our first year of existing at all began in the same breath. That timing made last year genuinely hectic in a way I don't think we fully appreciated until we had a second Fringe to compare it against. We opened at lunchtime and stayed open until 1am, every single day, convinced we had the energy and the capacity to s

It has been a bit overwhelming lately. A few months ago, being shortlisted for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards felt like the highest thing we could reasonably have hoped for in our first year. Since then, we have been named Startup of the Year by the National Startup Awards. We have made a national final with Franklin and Sons, taking place in London. And this week we got the call that Nectar has been shortlisted for New Bar of the Year at the Scottish Bar and Pub Award

We have written about cocktail competitions before on this blog. This one was probably the biggest thing that has happened to Nectar's drinks programme so far, and I want to write about it honestly, because the honest version is more useful than the version where everything goes well. I did not place in the top three. But before I get to that, I want to be clear about the part I am genuinely, deeply proud of, because it is easy for a loss at the final to overshadow everything

On Wednesday 30 September 2026, Panos and I will leave Broughton Street for one night. Nectar Bar will have a takeover of Dalí's Bar in Zurich, and I want to tell you exactly why this is happening, because the reason is more personal than most bar takeover announcements tend to be. Alfred, the owner of Dalis Zurich Alfred and I grew up together in Zurich. Secondary school, the particular kind of friendship that forms when you are young and slightly reckless and convinced that

When I look back at the photographs and videos from the very first days of Nectar Edinburgh in Year One, I feel something that takes a moment to identify properly. It is not nostalgia exactly, though there is some of that. It is more like the specific feeling of looking at a version of yourself that was trying extremely hard at something it did not fully understand yet. The energy in those early images is obvious. The uncertainty, in retrospect, is equally obvious, even if no

We get asked this a lot. More than almost any other question that is not directly about the menu. The answer is yes. We love dogs. We love them in the way that a bar full of people who genuinely, actively love dogs loves them: enthusiastically, without reservation, and in a way that has produced a small but entirely real population of canine regulars who have their favourite spots in the room and who are, in several cases, better known to the team than some of the human guest

The prawns in tomato sauce are one of the best dishes to come out of Margarita's kitchen. I say that with complete confidence and without much qualification. The sauce is rich and spiced and has a depth that takes time to build. The prawns absorb it properly rather than sitting on top of it. The dish has been on the menu since we opened and it consistently generates the kind of reaction that tells you something has been cooked correctly: the plate comes back empty and the tab

I want to start by saying what this article is not. It is not a list of achievements. It is not a round of self-congratulation wrapped in false modesty. It is not a press release with a photo of a trophy and a quote from a founder about being humbled and grateful, even though I am both of those things and find them genuinely difficult to articulate without sounding like exactly the kind of thing I am trying not to write. This is a thank you. A specific one, to specific people

We have been hosting birthdays since the day we opened, and one of the things I have learned over that time is that there is no single version of a birthday at Nectar. There are several, and which one you get depends almost entirely on how many people are coming. This is not a complaint and it is not a constraint. It is simply how the evening works, and understanding it in advance makes planning considerably easier, whether you are booking a table for two or asking us to hold

We enter a lot of competitions at Nectar. Cocktail competitions, food competitions, business awards. Some of them we talk about openly. Most of them we keep to ourselves, not because we are secretive about the process, but because we genuinely do not believe that winning an award is a reason for someone to book a table at Nectar. You should come because the food is worth eating and the cocktails are worth drinking, not because we placed in a competition you have never heard o

There is a moment on the last Friday of every month, somewhere around half past eight, when the room at Nectar changes. It is subtle at first. More people coming through the door than a normal Friday would bring at that hour. Tables that were having a quiet dinner start wrapping things up a little earlier than they otherwise might. And in the corner, DJ Leo is setting up. For the first hour, you would barely notice anything different. The music is quiet, the volume sits under

There is a particular kind of afternoon that Edinburgh does better than almost anywhere else. Not the hectic Saturday of tourist crowds on the Royal Mile or the purposeful Friday evening that has somewhere to be. Something quieter than both. The afternoon that belongs to nobody's plan in particular. The one that finds its own shape. It usually starts the same way. Someone is passing through. On their way into the city or on their way home from somewhere. They notice the warm

One of the questions we get asked most often is how we decide what goes on the menu. The honest answer is that the menu is never quite decided. It is always in the process of becoming something slightly better than it was. Every three months we reprint. Every month we run a special. Every week something new is being tried behind the bar or tested in the kitchen, quietly and without announcement, waiting to see whether it is good enough to earn its place in front of a guest. T

Private dining in Edinburgh tends to mean one of two things. A hotel function room where the carpet does not match the chairs and the food arrives under silver cloches from a kitchen you will never see. Or a curtained-off corner of a restaurant where you can still hear the table next to you ordering dessert. Nectar is neither of those things. When you hire a space at Nectar, you are hiring a proper cocktail bar and Greek kitchen on one of Edinburgh's most characterful indepen

If you have ever been to Nectar, there is a good chance you have asked me, or heard someone else ask me, where I am from. It comes up constantly, usually within the first few minutes of a conversation at the bar, and I understand why. The accent does not sit neatly anywhere, and neither, really, does the story behind how I ended up running a Greek-Mediterranean bar in Edinburgh in our Founder Spotlight. Where I am actually from I was born and raised in Zurich. My father is Cz

People often ask what makes Nectar special. Is it the cocktails? The food? The atmosphere? Of course, we care deeply about all of those things. But the real answer is simpler. It’s the feeling. When we opened Nectar, we didn’t just want to create another cocktail bar and restaurant. We wanted to build a space where people genuinely enjoy being. Somewhere you can walk through the door and instantly feel at ease. Somewhere warm, relaxed and welcoming, without it feeling forced

There is a particular moment in every cocktail masterclass at Nectar that Panos talks about more than anything else. It is not when the first drink comes together. It is not when someone nails the technique on the first attempt or produces something that tastes better than they expected. It is the moment when someone who arrived genuinely convinced they would be the worst person in the room takes a sip of the cocktail they made, looks up, and laughs. That moment happens at al

Hire the back room or full venue at Nectar for private events in Edinburgh. Greek-Mediterranean food, handcrafted cocktails, from birthdays to corporate evenings.

Frequently asked questions about Nectar in Edinburgh, covering dogs, vegan options, sharing plates, cocktails, wine pairings, bookings and what to expect.