Old Town, International Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: “Get the best seats in the place” (at the back, which offers “beautiful views” of the castle) to make the most of a visit to this city-centre staple, also turning out “enjoyable” cuisine of a modern European bent.

Glasgow chef Nico Simeone’s distinctive concept has grown into a national chain with 11 restaurants (including Fitzrovia and Canary Wharf) in just six years, offering a quick-changing succession of themed six-course menus for under £50 a head. It’s widely seen as “fantastic value” and has a sizeable fanbase amongst reporters (“every six weeks, the menu renews and for me, it is something to look forward to…”; “we simply love it and we’ve yet to miss a menu!” – “the Tokyo menu was so good we went back a second time”). Only a tiny few say, “you can feel you’re on a conveyor belt with lots of upsells”; or that the whole thing is “a dystopia of where restaurants will evolve”.

2022 Review: Launched in July 2021, Scotland’s largest food hall (and Edinburgh’s first) features a range of chef-led food stalls and restaurants. These include The Gannet East, Creel Caught, Erpingham House, El Perro Negro, east PIZZAS, Broken Clock, Joelato, Salt & Chilli Oriental and CHIX. Also houses Inverarity Morton’s boutique bottleshop.

This “new, super-fun” spot on Edinburgh’s Southside offers small plates of ‘a sophisticated take on junk food’ from Cam & Jude Laidlaw, whose lockdown recipe blog led to a food vendor stall which won a triple crown of Scottish, British & European street food championships in 2022. The bricks-and-mortar site opened last year, and their “Asian fusion” dishes (for example, hand-dived Orkney scallop with confit oxtail) converts guests into “big fans”.