Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Prestonpans
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Prestonpans restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 87 restaurants in Prestonpans and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Prestonpans restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Prestonpans Restaurants
1. Rhubarb, Prestonfield Hotel
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
Priestfield Rd - EH16
Set in 20 acres near Arthur’s Seat, this opulent boutique hotel is part of James Thomson’s portfolio (he also owns the Witchery) and “continues to deliver excellent ambience”. The food is dependable too – it’s not especially foodie, but did in September 2023, for example, win Boutique Hotelier’s Restaurant of the Year awards. The venue also wins nominations for a fine afternoon tea.
2. Macau Kitchen
restaurant in Edinburgh
93 Saint Leonards Street - EH8
Macau Kitchen is a multi-award winning restaurant in the heart of Edinburgh offering guests a unique dining experience of Progressive Macanese Cuisine. An independent business, run by chef patron Kei and Hoeyyn (Front of House). This restaurant is a representation of the int...
3. Restaurant Martin Wishart
French restaurant in Edinburgh
54 The Shore - EH6
“In the historic port of Leith, overlooking the Water of Leith from its converted warehouse setting” Martin Wishart’s well established HQ has proved one of our annual diners’ poll’s most consistent over-achievers for the last two decades. It’s not a place for ego and gimmicks: just “exceptional food” (“the unusual combinations of flavours, especially of the amuse-bouches, are a delight”) that’s “well deserving of its accolades”. Service is notably “charming” too (“although we don’t visit frequently, as we live in London, we are always recognised and warmly welcomed”).
4. Aizle
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
The Garden Room in The Kimpton Hotel, 38 Charlotte Square - EH2
Stuart Ralston relocated this ambitious venue from a previous location in 2020, and it continues to go from strength to strength in this modern, glass-roofed ‘Garden Room’ of a hotel. The “excellent tasting menu is very creative and not too expensive by the yardstick of comparable ventures”, with “skillful” preparation of an “impressively eclectic array of ingredients”.
5. Gardener’s Cottage
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
1 Royal Terrace Gardens, London Road - EH7
2021 Review: “The menu is fixed and you sit at one of three large tables with others” at this quirky venture, which occupies a stone cottage in Royal Terrace Gardens. You get what you’re given from a mystery tasting menu on which sustainability is to the fore, with many of the ingredients grown by Charlie the gardener. On practically all reports the food is well-rated, and they must be doing something right having last year now opened The Lookout (see also).
6. Number One, Balmoral Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
1 Princes Street - EH2
“A must visit when in town” – chef Matthew Sherry delivers a “high-class tasting menu with ingredients to match” (seven courses for £115 per person) at this famous dining room – a “beautiful” and “club-like” space in the basement of one of Scotland’s most famous hotels. It’s an all-round experience too that’s “very comfortable” (and business-friendly) with “professional and friendly service”. “The wine list is not cheap but some good bins are to be found”.
7. Fishers Leith
Fish & seafood restaurant in Edinburgh
1 The Shore - EH6
This “lovely restaurant by the Water of Leith” is “just the perfect place for a business lunch”, with “lovely staff, simple fish dishes and rock-solid wines”. Set in a seventeenth-century watchtower, it has been running for more than 20 years and is the flagship of a small group with a branch in the city as well as The Shore next door.
8. The Kitchin
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
78 Commercial Street - EH6
“One of the stalwarts of the Edinburgh scene” – Tom & Michaela’s flagship venue opened in this converted warehouse in Leith in 2006 and was yet again the city’s most commented-on destination in our annual diners’ poll. “A real treat”, it’s “simply superb at every level” with “wonderful” cooking that “changes with the seasons”, “a beautiful setting” and “professional service”. “Even though it’s a 250-mile trip for us with a stop over it’s well worth it: our favourite eating experience in the UK by far!”
9. The Little Chartroom
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
14 Bonnington Road - EH6
“The food is good… really good” at Roberta Hall-McCarron’s popular operation, where “the queue to get in has dropped from a five-month wait to a couple of weeks” following a move to larger premises a couple of years back (the original is now open as Eleanore, see also). It offers “very friendly service and a great location” – and “happily it’s a place you can go for a three-course meal, not a ten-course tasting menu” (although there is also a five-course option available).
10. 21212
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
3 Royal Ter - EH7
2023 Review: Paul Kitching’s “wonderfully exciting food” has been a highlight of Edinburgh’s dining scene for almost 15 years, served in the signature ‘formation’ of his restaurant’s name: a choice of 2 starters followed by 1 soup, a choice of 2 mains, 1 cheese and 2 desserts, the line-up changing every week. There’s a “beautifully decorated and elegant drawing room for pre- and post-dinner drinks”.
11. The Walnut
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
9 Croall Place - EH7
2021 Review: This “real gem” on the road to Leith – “family-run with flair and passion” – “uses unusual cuts of locally sourced meats and seasonal produce to keep the cost of lunch to £10”. It’s “intimate and cosy, but on a hot summer’s day, sitting outside sipping wine and eating the amazing fresh food the kitchen sends out is a real treat”.
12. The Lookout by Gardener's Cottage
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
Calton Hill - EH7
“Really enjoyable experience (apart from the walk in the dark on icy paths to reach the place from the Royal Terrace!”) – few restaurants can match the location of this dramatically cantilevered structure, whose floor-to-ceiling windows ensure superb views over the city from Calton Hill. On limited feedback this year, some “outstanding” results were reported from a no-choice, four-course menu for £85 (shorter and cheaper at lunch). On the downside, in March 2023, Chitra Ramaswamy in The Times had an up-and-down trip: it “ha[d] everything going for it: fabulous taste, music, service and ingredients in a world-class setting” but was “simply too expensive for what you get”.
13. Condita
British, Modern restaurant in Edinburgh
15 Salisbury Place - EH9
Conor Toomey’s “outstanding food continues to surprise and delight” all who experience his “excellent” three-hour no-choice tasting menus (at £150 per person), while there is “good interactive service” and the “wine pairings are the best ever”. The only criticism is directed at the dining room, which is “a little sparse” – with diners saying that cuisine of this monumental quality “deserves a better setting than a glorified shop”.
14. Wedgwood
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
267 Canongate - EH8
Paul and Lisa Wedgwood’s basement on the Royal Mile again wins consistent praise this year for its “very good” cuisine, which provides a good trade off between its level of ambition and its relative affordability. There’s a seasonally changing à la carte menu, or you can opt for the ‘Wee Tour of Scotland’ tasting menu at £80 per person.
15. Valvona & Crolla
Italian restaurant in Edinburgh
19 Elm Row - EH7
“The best choice of wine anywhere” is the main reason to visit the Caffè Bar at the rear of this famous deli and wine merchants (est. 1934) where any of the “extensive range of bottles from the shop” is available to accompany a meal for super-modest (£6) corkage. By comparison, the food is very straightforward, but provides dependable sustenance from breakfast onwards.
16. David Bann
Vegetarian restaurant in Edinburgh
56-58 St Marys St - EH1
Just off the Royal Mile, this aubergine-hued stalwart café (est. 2002) is one of Scotland’s best known veggie/vegan haunts, owing to its “imaginative dishes” that deftly incorporate influences from the Mediterranean to the Pacific and subcontinent; “pleasant service” adds to its appeal.
17. White Horse Oyster & Seafood Bar
Fish & seafood restaurant in Edinburgh
266 Canongate - EH8
2021 Review: The oldest trad boozer on the Royal Mile (est 1742) has now been reincarnated as an oyster and seafood bar – the name switching connotation from the equine to the maritime. It has won immediate high ratings for its “outstanding” crustacea.
18. La Garrigue
French restaurant in Edinburgh
31 Jeffrey St - EH1
Jean-Michel Gauffre is the mastermind behind this “pleasing, modest French establishment”, in the Old Town; a firm fixture since its launch in 2001, it turns out hearty Gallic cooking with a particular focus on the Languedoc, alongside an excellent value lunchtime ‘Menu du Jour’.
19. Howies
Scottish restaurant in Edinburgh
29 Waterloo Place - EH1
2021 Review: David Howie Scott’s flagship venue at the foot of Calton Hill celebrates its 30th anniversary last year as a purveyor of inexpensive Scottish classics. The odd reporter feels that it’s “nice enough, but not the stand-out it could be”, but that’s within the context of pretty solid ratings overall. There are two spinoffs in Edinburgh and one in Aberdeen.
20. Mother India’s Cafe
Indian restaurant in Edinburgh
3-5 Infirmary St - EH1
This spin-off from the famous Glasgow original “never fails to hit the spot” with its “terrific” Indian cooking, served in tapas-sized portions to taste and share. It’s “great for lunch after a visit to the Dovecot Studios”, a contemporary tapestry gallery next door in Edinburgh’s Old Town.
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