Broughton Street Edinburgh. A Local's Guide to One of the City's Best Independent Streets.

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 strong neighbourhood identity, a community that has been here long enough to have opinions about the place and care about what it becomes. It is not a tourist street. It is a local one, which is precisely why it is worth seeking out.

I have spent the last eight months running Nectar at number 73, and in that time I have come to understand this street in a way that only happens when you are part of it every day. This is my honest guide to the best of what Broughton Street has to offer, from morning coffee to late-night cocktails, with everything in between.

The Street Itself

Broughton Street sits in a part of Edinburgh that connects several different versions of the city. The Georgian architecture of the New Town is at its northern edge. The bohemian energy of Broughton Village and the LGBTQ+ community that has long made this area its home gives the street a warmth and openness that you feel from the first time you walk it. The proximity to Leith Walk and the broader regeneration of that corridor has brought new energy in recent years without displacing what was already here.

It is a walkable street. Everything on this list is within a few minutes of everything else, which makes it ideal for an evening that moves through several places rather than anchoring in one. Start early, move slowly, and let the street take you.

For Food

Nectar

At number 73 you will find us. Nectar is a Greek-Mediterranean gastro bar with handcrafted cocktails and sharing plates designed to be eaten slowly across a long evening. The kitchen is led by Margarita, whose career spans Edinburgh's best Mediterranean restaurants. The cocktail menu is built by Panos, who has spent years developing a style that nobody else in Edinburgh quite replicates.

The Tzatziki Martini arrives completely clear despite being built on cucumber, yogurt, dill and garlic. The Cheese Filo Pastry is feta in crisp pastry finished with honey and sesame. The Prawn Saganaki is a rich, deeply comforting Greek classic. If you want to understand what the evening should look like, our guide to ordering sharing plates covers everything before you arrive.

Open Tuesday to Thursday from 5pm, Friday from 5pm, Saturday and Sunday from noon. Book here.

The Broughton

The Broughton at numbers 46 to 48a is the street's Michelin Guide recommended dining pub, and it earns that recognition comfortably. The 2025 Michelin Guide described it as a smart dining pub with appealing, good value cooking, and that is a fair summary of what it delivers consistently.

The Sunday roast is the thing most locals will tell you to book ahead for, and they are right. It is one of the better Sunday roasts in this part of the city, and the room fills up quickly on weekend afternoons. But the weekday dinner menu is equally worth your attention, with elevated pub food that takes quality seriously without taking itself too seriously. A strong wine list runs alongside everything.

Coco Bistro

Coco Bistro is one of the gems on the street and one of the places we find ourselves recommending most often when guests ask about dinner options beyond Nectar.

It is a proper French bistro in the best sense of that description. Simple, focused, executed with care. The wine list is considered and the service has the kind of ease that only comes from a kitchen and front of house that genuinely know what they are doing. The meat and fish platters in particular are excellent. The kind of meal that makes you feel you have discovered something rather than simply booked somewhere convenient.

Frenchie

Frenchie brings a more elevated version of French small plate cooking to the street, and it occupies a slightly different register from Coco Bistro while operating in the same broad territory.

The dishes are refined and precise, with the kind of attention to detail in presentation and flavour that signals a kitchen with real ambition. If you want French-inspired food at its most considered on Broughton Street, this is where to find it.

The Olive Branch

The Olive Branch has become one of the most consistently busy venues on the street for good reason. It is a classic neighbourhood spot, warm and unpretentious, that does brunch and light food with the kind of reliability that builds genuine local loyalty over years.

If you are starting your Broughton Street day rather than ending it, this is the natural anchor. It gets busy, particularly on weekend mornings, and the regulars tend to arrive early.

The Basement

The Basement is the place to go when what you want is tacos and margaritas in an atmosphere that does not take itself too seriously.

It sits below street level, which gives it a particular kind of energy that the venues above ground on this list do not quite have. Lively, relaxed, good for a group. The margaritas are the reason to go and the tacos are the reason to stay longer than you planned.

For Drinks

Pickles

Pickles is a Broughton Street institution and one of those places that people who know Edinburgh will mention before almost anything else when you ask them what the street is really about.

It is a small, rustic wine bar at number 56, lined with shelves of preserves and bottles, with the kind of cosy, unpretentious atmosphere that is genuinely difficult to manufacture. The focus is cheese and charcuterie boards alongside a wine list that rewards people who ask questions. The pate, the chutneys and the Scottish cheese selection are the things regulars come back for. It is the kind of bar that does not need to advertise itself because the people who find it tend to tell everyone they know.

Go after 9pm for the best version of it.

Thamel and The Blind Tiger

Thamel is a restaurant on Broughton Street with something exceptional hidden inside it. The Blind Tiger is a speakeasy beneath the building, and it is one of the more genuinely atmospheric late-night options on this side of the city.

Fridays bring live jazz. Saturdays bring a DJ. Both are worth planning around depending on what kind of evening you are after. The speakeasy format, the intimacy of the space and the quality of what they programme makes it feel like a discovery rather than a destination, which is the best thing a late-night venue can be.

Order the olives. You will understand why once they arrive.

We send guests there regularly and they return the favour. You can book at Thamel here.

Vinette and Vivienne

Directly across the road from Nectar sits one of the street's newer and more exciting additions.

Vinette is a high quality wine bar and restaurant in its own right, with a food offering that takes small plates seriously and a wine list that reflects genuine knowledge and curation. Vivienne is the speakeasy bar within the same building, polished and focused, with a cocktail menu that delivers with precision and consistency.

Together they make for one of the most complete evening experiences on the street. Dinner at Vinette, then drinks downstairs at Vivienne, is a format that works exceptionally well and requires almost no movement to execute.

Uno Mas

Uno Mas is the late-night option around the corner from Nectar, and it is exactly what a late-night option should be.

Great energy, music that suits the room, and a crowd that is there because it wants to be rather than because it ended up there by default. It has been recognised locally as one of Edinburgh's top late-night venues, which reflects how consistently it delivers on the one thing late-night bars need to get right: making you glad you stayed out.

I have had more than one last drink there after closing at Nectar. I stand by every one of them.

How to Spend a Full Evening on Broughton Street

The architecture of a perfect Broughton Street evening builds itself if you let it.

Start at Nectar for food and cocktails from early evening. Take your time with the sharing plates and order a round of drinks you have not tried before. When the evening is ready to move, walk down to The Blind Tiger for live jazz if it is a Friday, or let Vivienne across the road be your next stop for a later cocktail in a different register. If you are still going, Uno Mas is the close.

That is four venues, one street, and an evening that does not require a taxi or a plan beyond arriving at the beginning of it.

Broughton Street is one of the best streets in Edinburgh for an independent evening out. It is just waiting for more people to find it.

Book your table at Nectar here.

Nectar is at 73 Broughton Street, Edinburgh EH1 3RJ. Open Tuesday to Thursday from 5pm, Friday from 5pm until 1am, Saturday from noon until 1am and Sunday from noon until 11pm.