If you have ever bitten into a piece of cold halloumi and felt that curious, almost musical squeak against your teeth, you already know that this is not a normal cheese. It announces itself differently. It behaves differently. And when it is grilled and served hot, it transforms into something that is very difficult to stop eating. Halloumi is one of my favourite things on the Nectar menu, and I say that as someone who has eaten more of it than is probably reasonable. There i

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

There are dishes on a menu that you design, and there are dishes that arrive fully formed from somewhere older than the restaurant itself. Our Spinach and Leek Pitta belongs firmly in the second category. It did not come from a recipe book, a food trend, or a conversation about what might work well on a sharing plate menu. It came from Margarita's family, from decades of preparation in Greek kitchens, and from a tradition that predates Nectar by several generations. This is t

There are dishes on a menu that you eat and enjoy. And then there are dishes that you find yourself thinking about on the way home, that come to mind when the weather turns cold and grey, that you order first on a return visit without looking at anything else. Prawn Saganaki is the second kind. It has quietly become one of the most talked-about dishes at Nectar, and the more time passes, the more I understand why. What Saganaki Actually Means The word saganaki does not refer

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

There is a dish on our menu that I did not expect to become the thing people come back for most consistently. Not the cocktails, not the platters, not the flagship Tzatziki Martini that gets photographed and talked about more than anything else we serve. The chicken skewer. It is our bestseller. Has been for most of the time we have been open. And the more I think about why, the more it makes sense, because a great chicken skewer is one of the most deceptively difficult thing

I did not grow up eating Greek food. I grew up in Zurich, in a household where the cooking was good but Swiss and Central European in its character: hearty, precise, built around the kind of ingredients that suit a landlocked country with cold winters. Mediterranean cooking was something I encountered on holidays, in restaurants, at other people's tables. It was always appealing but it felt like it belonged to somewhere else. Then I moved to Edinburgh, met Panos and Margarita

Greek food has a reputation problem in the UK, and the problem is familiarity. Most people have a fixed image of what Greek food is. A gyros from a late-night takeaway. A Greek salad with a block of feta. Hummus from a supermarket shelf. Maybe a taverna meal from a holiday in Rhodes fifteen years ago, where the view was better than the octopus and the house wine arrived in a carafe without a label. None of those things are wrong. Some of them are genuinely good. But they repr

Nectar has been open on Broughton Street for 6 months now, offering specialised cocktails and greek food.