Private Dining in Edinburgh. An Intimate Space on Broughton Street That Is Entirely Yours.

Most private dining experiences in Edinburgh follow the same format. A hotel function room, a curtained-off section of a larger restaurant, a fixed menu chosen from a laminated sheet, and a coordinator you speak to once before the evening and never see again on the night itself.

Nectar is not that.

When you hire a space at Nectar, you are hiring a proper cocktail bar and Greek kitchen on one of Edinburgh's most characterful independent streets, staffed by the same small team that runs it every night of the week. Panos behind the bar making the cocktails he has spent years developing. Margarita in the kitchen producing the food that has earned over 220 five-star Google reviews since we opened. A space that has warmth built into it rather than arranged for the occasion.

Private dining here feels like the venue was designed for your evening specifically. That is because in the ways that actually matter, it was.

The Spaces

Nectar has three distinct areas that can be configured for private dining depending on the size and style of your event, and a full venue hire option for larger groups.

The Naughty Corner - Up to 24 Guests

The back room is the most intimate option Nectar offers and the one most suited to a genuinely private dining experience. It seats up to 24 people in a contained, self-contained space that feels separate from the rest of the venue without feeling isolated from its energy. The lighting is warm, the acoustics allow conversation without effort, and the room has the particular quality that good private dining spaces need above all else: it feels like somewhere rather than a space that has been cleared for an event.

For a birthday dinner, a client entertainment evening, a team celebration or an anniversary meal, the back room delivers the intimacy of a private space with the quality of a venue operating at its full standard. The food and drinks are made in the same kitchen and at the same bar as every other evening at Nectar. There is no private dining menu that reduces the experience. You get the full version of what we do, in a room that is entirely yours.

The Dining Room - Up to 20 Guests

The front room accommodates up to 20 guests and has a slightly different character from the back. More connected to the street-facing energy of the venue, with the particular atmosphere that comes from being in the main body of a bar that is alive with other people while still having your own table and your own corner of the evening.

This format works well for groups who want privacy without full separation, corporate teams who want a lively backdrop to the evening rather than a sealed room, and smaller celebrations where the energy of the wider venue adds to rather than detracts from the occasion.

The Bar Area - Up to 10 Guests

The bar area is the most informal option and the most immersive. Up to 10 guests seated at and around the bar itself, with Panos working directly in front of them across the course of the evening. This format is particularly well suited to cocktail-led events, where the proximity to the bar and the direct interaction with the person making the drinks is the point of the evening rather than incidental to it.

It is also the natural setting for a cocktail masterclass, where the group makes drinks alongside Panos rather than simply receiving them. The bar area in that format becomes a workspace and a classroom simultaneously, producing an evening that is active and genuinely memorable rather than passive.

Full Exclusive Hire - Up to 60 Guests

For larger events, Nectar is available for full exclusive hire accommodating up to 60 guests across the entire venue. This is the format for significant birthdays, large corporate events, wedding receptions, product launches, and any occasion where the size of the group and the importance of the evening warrant having the whole space to themselves.

Full exclusive hire has the full Nectar team working exclusively for your event across the entire venue. The kitchen produces food to your brief. The bar programme is built around what your guests enjoy. The layout, pacing and atmosphere of the evening are shaped around you rather than shared with other tables.

This is private dining at its most complete. Not a room in a restaurant, but an entire venue on one of Edinburgh's best independent streets, operating at its full standard, for one group only.

The Food

Private dining at Nectar is built around the sharing plate format that defines everything we do. Margarita's Greek-Mediterranean kitchen produces dishes designed to arrive across the evening, keep the table reaching in, and generate the kind of conversation that food should generate.

For private events, the menu can be tailored to the group. We can build a selection around dietary requirements, personal preferences or a specific brief. Guests with vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free requirements are well served by a menu that is already half vegetarian and vegan by design rather than accommodation.

The food is not a private dining version of the menu. It is the menu, applied with the same care and in the same kitchen as any other evening at Nectar. The Prawn Saganaki, the Spinach and Leek Pitta made from Margarita's family recipe, the Cheese Filo Pastry with honey and sesame, the meat platters, the sea bass. All of it produced to the standard that every other guest at Nectar receives.

If you want to understand what the sharing plate format looks like in practice before your event, our guide to ordering sharing plates explains everything from how many dishes to expect to how the evening flows.

The Cocktails

Panos has worked behind bars across Edinburgh, Dublin and the Greek islands. The cocktail menu at Nectar is the product of that experience applied to a specific brief: drinks that are technically distinctive, rooted in Mediterranean identity, and genuinely unlike what other Edinburgh bars are producing.

For private dining guests, the cocktail experience can take several forms.

A welcome cocktail on arrival sets the tone before the meal begins, introducing guests to the menu through a single carefully chosen drink that says something about what the evening holds. A curated selection of cocktails across the meal, suggested alongside specific dishes, creates a food and drink pairing experience that most Edinburgh venues are not equipped to offer. Or a free-choice approach, with the team guiding each guest toward the right drink based on their preferences, which produces a more personalised and less structured evening.

The clarified cocktails in particular are well suited to a private dining context, because they generate conversation. The Tzatziki Martini arriving at the table looking nothing like its ingredients suggest it should, the Lemon Cheesecake tasting exactly as its name promises in a glass that looks nothing like dessert. Drinks that give people something to say to each other before the food has even arrived.

Who Private Dining at Nectar Is For

The honest answer is that it works for almost any group that wants something better than a standard restaurant booking without going to the expense and formality of a traditional private dining room.

Corporate groups find that the informal warmth of Nectar produces more genuine interaction than a formal dinner setting. The sharing plates encourage conversation that a plated three-course menu does not. The cocktails give people something to explore and discuss rather than simply a wine list to navigate. The result is a corporate evening that feels like a reward rather than an obligation.

Birthday celebrations benefit from a space that can be shaped around a group's energy rather than a fixed event template. An intimate dinner for twelve in the back room has a completely different character from a full venue hire for fifty, and both are possible. The team works to understand what the occasion calls for rather than applying the same format to every booking.

Wedding receptions work beautifully in the venue. The intimacy of the space, the quality of the food and drink, and the warmth of the atmosphere make Nectar the kind of wedding reception venue that guests talk about because it felt personal rather than institutional. For couples who want their celebration to feel like an evening at a place they love rather than a hired event space, Nectar offers something that most Edinburgh venues cannot match.

For groups interested in adding a cocktail masterclass to their private dining experience, that option is available and produces one of the more memorable private event formats we offer. The meal and the masterclass can be structured as separate elements of the evening or combined into a single flowing experience depending on what the group wants.

Pricing and How It Works

There are no fixed packages at Nectar. Pricing is agreed clearly before the event so there are no surprises on the night. Minimum spends, deposits and what is included are all confirmed in advance as part of the enquiry process.

This approach exists because every group and every event is different, and a package designed around a theoretical average produces an average outcome. A conversation about what you actually want produces something specific and genuinely suited to your occasion.

The enquiry process is straightforward. Fill in the form on our events page with the details of your event, the number of guests, the type of occasion and the date you have in mind. The team will come back to you with options, proposed format and pricing built around your specific brief.

You can also reach us directly at team@nectarbar.co.uk or by calling 0131 558 9156 if you would rather start with a conversation.

Why Broughton Street

The location matters more than it might seem. Broughton Street is one of Edinburgh's best independent streets, with a concentration of genuinely good independent venues within a short walk of Nectar. The Blind Tiger speakeasy at Thamel a few doors down hosts live jazz on Fridays and a DJ on Saturdays. Vivienne across the road is one of the most polished cocktail bars in the city. The street has enough character and quality around it that a private event at Nectar can become part of a broader Edinburgh evening rather than a standalone destination.

For guests travelling to Edinburgh for the occasion, Broughton Street is a ten-minute walk from the city centre and easily accessible from the York Place tram stop. It is far enough from the tourist trail to feel like a local discovery and close enough to everything else to remain genuinely convenient.

Full details and the enquiry form are on our events page here.

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