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Greek Restaurants in Edinburgh: Where to Find the Real Thing
Updated October 2026. This guide replaces two earlier posts I wrote on Greek food in Edinburgh. They covered the same ground from slightly different angles, so I have combined them, corrected what had changed, and added a menu decoder.
Greek food has a reputation problem in Britain that it does not deserve. For a lot of people it means a late night gyros, a tub of supermarket hummus, or one very good week on an island that they have been trying to recreate ever since. All of those are real, and none of them are the whole picture.
I should say plainly where I am standing. I run Nectar, a Greek-Mediterranean bar and restaurant at 73 Broughton Street, which opened in August 2025. So I am not neutral, and I will mention us once, near the end, and keep the rest of this guide about the city. Edinburgh has more good Greek cooking than most people expect, and it is spread across the map: a taverna in Leith, a restaurant on Morrison Street, a street food counter in Tollcross, and a newer room by the Playhouse. This is how I would explain it to a friend.
What real Greek food actually is
The word people reach for is "simple", and it is a bit misleading. Greek cooking is restrained, which is a different thing. Olive oil, lemon, garlic, herbs and direct heat do most of the work, so there is nowhere for a weak ingredient to hide. A good horiatiki has no lettuce and no tricks. It has tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, and it falls apart if they do not.
Greek cooking also has a long paper trail. Archestratus, a poet from Gela in the fourth century BC, wrote a gastronomic poem about where to find the best food around the Mediterranean, which is about as early as written food guides get. And in 2010 UNESCO added the Mediterranean diet to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, with Greece among the first countries on it. In 2013 the list was widened to seven countries. I mention both because they make a point I care about: this is a food culture people have been taking seriously for a very long time.
The other thing is how it is eaten. A Greek meal is not a transaction. Plates arrive in waves, they go to the middle of the table, and nobody is in a hurry. If a Greek restaurant wants to turn your table in an hour, it is not much of a Greek restaurant.
Where to eat Greek food in Edinburgh
I have listed these in the order I would send a friend, depending on what they are after. I have also checked, as far as I can, that each is still trading and where it is, because restaurant guides go out of date faster than anything else I write.
Fava, 248 Morrison Street.
If someone asked me for one name, this would be it. Fava opened in February 2022 and has become the reference point for Greek dining in the city. The menu is built around fava, the split pea purée that gives the restaurant its name, with dips, salads and grilled dishes alongside. Our head chef, Margarita, worked as a sous chef at Fava before Nectar, so it is a place I have a lot of respect for. Go with a group and order widely.
Spitaki, 133 East Claremont Street.
Spitaki is a taverna in the truest sense. The menu runs through the dishes you would expect to find in a family kitchen, including gigantes, the large baked beans in tomato, bougiourti, the baked feta with chilli, and prawn saganaki. It is warm and generous, and it has been around long enough to have regulars. Check its opening days before you go, because it does not open every night.
Ella, 134 to 136 Leith Walk.
Ella calls itself a Taste of Greece, and its menu is built around tapas style meze, grills and gyros. It is on Leith Walk, so it works well if you are heading to or from Leith, and it is busy for a good reason. I have not tracked down its opening date, so I will not guess at it.
Simply Greek, 8 Union Street.
Simply Greek started as a small taverna and moved to a larger room opposite the Playhouse in late 2025. That makes it a natural choice if you are going to a show. It is a traditional menu with moussaka, souvlaki and mixed grills, and a mezze offer on weekday afternoons if you book. If you are planning a night around the theatre, my pre theatre dinner guide covers the area.
Nixos, 6 Brougham Street, Tollcross.
Nixos is Greek street food: gyros and souvlaki in the form most people actually eat them, quickly, with your hands, and with a decent amount of tzatziki. It took over a site that has had a few Greek identities over the years, so if you use older guides you may be sent to a different name at the same address.
Kafeneion to Steki, 52 Coburg Street, Leith.
A family run Cretan taverna in Leith, with shared plates that include fried feta with honey, octopus and lamb chops. It is further from the centre than most of the places on this list, and it is worth the walk. It is also the one I would check is open before you set out, because the opening days are limited.
How to read a Greek menu
A lot of people avoid Greek restaurants because they do not know what to order. These are the words you will keep seeing.
Meze. Small plates meant to be shared. A good meze meal is a series of them, not one main course each.
Saganaki. Named after the small two handled pan it is cooked in. It can be cheese, fried until golden, or prawns baked in tomato and feta, and you will see both in Edinburgh.
Souvlaki and gyros. Souvlaki is meat on a skewer, grilled. Gyros is meat cooked on a vertical spit and shaved off in slices. They are often wrapped in the same pitta, which is why people mix them up.
Gigantes. Giant white beans baked slowly in tomato and herbs. One of the best vegetarian dishes on any Greek menu.
Tirokafteri. A spicy feta dip, from the Greek words for cheese and spicy. If you like whipped feta, this is the original version, with a kick.
Kleftiko. Lamb cooked slowly until it falls off the bone. The name comes from the klephts, the thieves of Greek history, and the story goes that they cooked meat sealed up so no smoke would give them away. It is a good tale, and I would not swear to it, but it is a good dish.
Horiatiki. The village salad. Tomato, cucumber, onion, olives, feta, oregano and olive oil. If it comes with lettuce, it is not the real thing.
What to look for in a good Greek restaurant
The feta. Real feta has protected status in the European Union, which was confirmed in 2002, and it tastes different from the supermarket imitations. It should not be a garnish. When it is the main event, as in a cheese filo with honey and sesame, you can tell a lot about a kitchen quickly.
The meat. Lamb and pork matter more in Greek cooking than chicken does. If the menu is mostly chicken, it is probably aimed at someone else's idea of Greek food. Chicken souvlaki is still good, but it is not the centre of gravity.
The seafood. Prawns, sea bass, octopus and calamari are a core part of the coastal kitchens, and they are cooked simply.
The wine list. Greece has one of the most interesting wine cultures in Europe, and most of its grapes are native. Assyrtiko, the crisp mineral white, comes originally from the island of Santorini. Xinomavro is a red from northern Greece, especially around Naoussa, and people often compare it to Nebbiolo. A restaurant that stocks Greek wines and can talk about them has made an effort.
And then there is us
Nectar is a Greek-Mediterranean bar and kitchen. Margarita leads the kitchen and Panos and the bar team build the drinks, and we try to make the food and the cocktails belong to the same idea.
If you are new to the menu, the cheese filo pastry, with feta, honey and sesame, is the dish I recommend to every table. The chicken skewer is grilled over direct heat and marinated properly. The grilled halloumi comes with a dark forest fruit chutney, which is our own invention and not a Greek classic, and I say so because that is the honest version. On the cocktail side, the Tzatziki Martini arrives clear, and the Drops of the River uses mastiha, a resin from the island of Chios that has protected status of its own. If you want a sense of how a night at our place goes, I wrote about Greek Night on the last Friday of every month.
We are on Broughton Street, and if you are planning a longer evening around it, my guide to Broughton Street lists where to start and where to finish.
How to choose
If you are a group of six and want to share everything, go to Fava. If you want a family taverna with a menu that has not changed to follow trends, go to Spitaki. If you are going to a show, Simply Greek is the closest. If you want something quick and cheap, Nixos does what it says. If you want an evening in Leith that feels like a holiday, Kafeneion to Steki. And if you want Greek food with a serious cocktail list, come and see us.
Why it matters
I think a city is better when it has a few places doing a cuisine properly, with real cooks and a menu that someone cares about, because it gives the rest of the food scene something to measure itself against. Edinburgh has that for Greek food now. It is not a huge scene, and it is not a loud one, but the places in this guide are doing the work.
If I have missed somewhere you love, tell me. I will update this page.
When you are ready, book a table at Nectar Bar, start with the cheese filo pastry, and ask us what we are drinking.
Tuesday to Thursday 5pm to 11pm Friday 5pm to 1am Saturday 12pm to 1am Sunday 5pm to 11pm Monday closed
