Edinburgh

There is a version of Edinburgh that exists in photographs and travel guides. The castle silhouetted against a brooding sky. The Royal Mile in full tourist flow. Arthur's Seat at sunrise. These things are real and they are genuinely worth experiencing. But the Edinburgh that the people who live here love is something slightly different: the city that appears in June when the days get long, in July when the terraces fill up and the light stays until nearly eleven at night, and

Edinburgh is a city that does international food well. That is not something that gets said often enough, partly because the conversation about Edinburgh's food scene tends to focus on its Michelin constellation, its Scottish produce credentials, and its newest openings. All of that is worth the attention it receives. But running quietly alongside the tasting menu narrative is a city that has always been genuinely good at representing cuisines from elsewhere, not in a diluted

I have been on Broughton Street every day for the better part of a year. I walk it in the morning before we open, I walk it late at night after we close, and I have eaten and drunk my way along almost every stretch of it in between. That gives me a reasonably strong opinion about what makes it one of the most interesting streets in Edinburgh for food and drink, and an equally strong opinion about what it is not. It is not the Royal Mile. It is not a tourist route, not a desti

There is a particular kind of Edinburgh evening that does not get written about enough. It starts with a table on Broughton Street sometime around half past five. A drink while you look at the menu. Food that arrives at the right pace and leaves you satisfied but not heavy. A walk up the hill to the Playhouse in time to find your seats without rushing. Two hours of something that stays with you. And then, if the evening is going well, the walk back down again to somewhere war

Every August, Edinburgh becomes a different city. The population roughly doubles. Every spare room in a ten mile radius is rented out to a comedian, a theatre troupe, or a solo performer who has been working on their show for two years and is quietly terrified. The Royal Mile turns into a parade of flyering, shouting, singing and general theatrical desperation. Cowgate stays open until four in the morning. And scattered across every church hall, basement, converted car park a

A good friend of mine visited Nectar for the first time not long ago. He had come up from London for the weekend and we had arranged to meet on a Friday evening. He arrived, looked around at the tables filling up, ordered a drink, and turned to me with a slightly puzzled expression. It feels like people gather here for drinks after work, he said. Just like pub culture in London. Is that the thing everywhere? I had to smile. Some days it is, some days it is not. But the honest

Edinburgh is one of the best cities in the UK for a hen party. Not because it has the biggest clubs or the loudest bars, though it has both if that is what you are after. Because it has something more useful than that: a genuinely varied and high-quality hospitality scene compressed into a city small enough to walk across in twenty minutes. That concentration matters more than most people realise when they are planning a group evening. In Edinburgh you can have dinner in a Me

Edinburgh is one of the best cities in the UK to eat in right now. I say that as someone who has lived here long enough to have opinions and eaten in enough places to back them up. The restaurant scene has changed enormously in the last few years, with independent venues doing genuinely ambitious work sitting alongside long-established institutions that have earned their reputation across decades. There are hundreds of places to choose from. This is not a comprehensive list.

When people find out that half of our menu at Nectar is vegetarian or vegan, the reaction is usually some version of pleasant surprise. A Mediterranean gastro bar that entered the Edinburgh scene leading with cocktails and Greek sharing plates does not immediately read as a venue that takes plant-based dining seriously. But that surprise says more about the assumptions people bring to Mediterranean food than it does about the food itself. Because in the Greek kitchen, vegetab

Most visitors to Edinburgh spend their time on the Royal Mile, Princes Street and George Street. All three are worth your time. But if you want to understand what Edinburgh actually feels like to the people who live here, you need to come further down into the New Town and find Broughton Street. Broughton Street runs northeast from the heart of Edinburgh's Georgian New Town down towards Leith Walk, and it has a character that is entirely its own. Independent businesses, a str

Edinburgh has a weekend reputation that is entirely justified. The city fills up on Friday and Saturday with visitors, locals out for special occasions, and the kind of energy that makes it one of the best nights out in the UK. Everyone knows about that version of Edinburgh. What fewer people talk about is how good this city can be on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evening. Quieter, more personal, easier to get a table, and often significantly better value. The venues that

Greek food has a reputation problem in the UK that it does not entirely deserve. For a lot of people, the reference points are the same. A chicken gyros from a late-night takeaway, a bowl of hummus on a supermarket shelf, maybe a taverna meal from a holiday in Crete fifteen years ago. None of those things are bad. But none of them are the full picture either. Authentic Greek cooking is one of the most underrepresented cuisines in British cities, considering how rich and varie

Edinburgh is one of those cities that almost does the work for you when it comes to romance. The cobblestones, the candlelit closes, the way the castle catches the last of the light on a clear evening. Even a quiet Tuesday can feel like a special occasion if you end up in the right place. I have spent the last eight months running Nectar on Broughton Street, and before that several years eating and drinking my way through this city with genuine curiosity. I know what makes an

Edinburgh has no shortage of cocktail bars. Some focus on theatre, some on classics, some on atmosphere. Over the years, working behind bars and visiting many more, I’ve started to notice that the places people remember are rarely defined by one thing alone. When people ask me what makes a great cocktail bar, the answer is never just about the drinks. It’s about how everything comes together. The room, the menu, the service, and the feeling you walk away with at the end of th