Last weekend we were in Edinburgh. We had a very lazy weekend doing almost nothing except walking from hotel to restaurant to pub. I thought you might be interested in reading about the places where we ate and drank.
The Golden Dragon, Castle St. It was late when we got to Edinburgh, so we just went out and stopped at the half-decent looking place to eat. It might have looked half-decent, but it really wasn’t. Some of the worst Chinese food I’ve ever had. And overpriced too. Best avoided.
The Mitre, High St. Saturday lunch was spent in a random pub on the Royal Mile. Nice pint of Guinness and some really good pub food.
Wedgwood, Canongate. Picked at random from the “what to do in Edinburgh” leaflet in our hotel room, this was a fabulous find for dinner on Saturday evening. Top quality modern British food in great surroundings. And with really friendly and efficient staff. We’ll definitely be going back here and I recommend that you give it a try too.
Tolbooth Tavern, Canongate. A quiet drink after dinner. But we headed west, down the hill and further away from the castle. We’ve been in this pub before. It’s nothing special, but the beer is good and it’s always pretty quiet even on a Saturday night. A nice change to pubs only ten minutes walk away up the hill where you stand no chance of getting a seat.
The Witchery, Castlehill. We were too late to book for dinner in the Witchery so we settled for a relatively late Sunday lunch. This is certainly my favourite Edinburgh restaurant. It may well be my favourite restaurant in the UK. Wonderful food in a really impressive building. Oh, and the it has the largest wine list of any restaurant I’ve ever been in – it’s a book.
Mercat Bar, West Maitland St. After the big meal at the Witchery for lunch we only wanted a snack in the evening. The Google Places directory on my G1 said that the Mercat was the closest decent bar to our hotel – so off we went. It was almost empty for most of the time we were there but the staff were friendly and the food was good. The cheeseboard enormous and rather scuppered any plans of only having a light snack.
Stockbridge Tap, Raeburn Place. This was a random place we were walking past at lunchtime. It looked nice, so we went in. Three hours later, we emerged having had some of the best home-cooked pub food that we had ever eaten. Nice pint too. I think it was called Spooky or something like that. Nowhere near the centre of the city, but if you’re ever near Stockbridge I recommend checking it out.