Scotland Cuisine: It's Not as Bad as You've Heard

If you've never been to the British Isles, then I'm sure you've heard the horror stories. The tasteless array of strangely named foods that apparently make up what is traditional British cuisine can indeed be very off putting. From the idea of mountains of chip shop fried foods to spotted dick (yes, it is really a thing) and the infamous Scottish Haggis could certainly put you off the idea of eating out while visiting.

And I'm not going to lie, the food that is generally consumed here by the locals is more often than not, lacking. The transition from Texas sized portions and Cajun and Mexican flavourings on everything took some distinct getting used to when moving here to a country who's main dish seems to be beans on toast. And they love to frown on the use of salt, or anything else that involves flavour.

But... having said that, that shouldn't put you off British or Scottish restaurants entirely, because there are some wonderful examples of food and some really excellent restaurants here. There may not be quite as much spice as you are accustomed to, but there are some wonderful Scottish meals that deserve their due.

In this review I will go over all kinds of restaurant options in Edinburgh for all types of visitors. In my time here I've had quite a bit of time to sample what the locals have to offer, and have found some absolute gems as well as a few restaurants to avoid like the plague. Hopefully this review will be of use to those wanting to visit Scotland's capitol, whether you want to splash out on something really amazing by top chef's and Michelin Star grade restaurants, or if you just want to know where is some good, wholesome food to get at a good value to keep your energy up while you're walking up and down the hills of Edinburgh.

I intend to review at least one of each type of restaurant from Bistro/Cafe, Fine Dining, Local Cuisine, Budget, Vegetarian, Take Away, as well as a few secret finds that may not be on the normal tourist trail. I will also include a few places I've gone that are best left alone. Hopefully this will make your time in Edinburgh, and your eating experience in Scotland, a whole lot nicer.

Quick Tips:

Before I give any other tips or suggestions regarding restaurants in Scotland, I will first address the issue of service, which many Americans and non-Europeans will find quite an issue. Do expect a different level of service when you come to Europe, because things are simply done different here, and if you come in expecting the same kind of service you get back home you are simply going to be disappointed. (Particularly if you are here in the summer during festival times when things are more than a little hectic and most restaurants are staffed with people from out of town.)

I have tried to rate the level of service in restaurants here with a healthy level of balance between what I know to be the norm here, and what I still expect as good service. You won't get the kind of attention that you get, even at say an O'Charleys in the states, but you do get some very competent waitresses, and not all of the service is actively bad, just not always quite as comprehensive as you may find in other places.

As for tipping, it is certainly not the thing that it is in the states or other places where waitresses get paid less with the understanding they will receive tips. As someone who's worked in the service industry here I can tell you that - as always - tips are very welcome, but not expected in the same way as they are in the US. If your service has been good, leave a bit of a tip; they will be pleased. If you are American (particularly during festival time) they will be expecting something, but my simple advice is to just tip exactly what you feel the service was worth, there is no absolute standard here for that.

I have been to places (like Estonia) where the waiting staff actively try to swindle customers on change because of the strange new currency - and I've never found that to be the case here. Although it is worth mentioning that if you are here (again, particularly as festival time) and are obviously from out of town, it is worth double checking your check and change. My friends visiting from the states last year who at a restaurant on Rose Street where charged the equivalent of for a lunch. It may have been an honest mistake at a busy time, but it's worth checking.

Best Way To Get Around:

Because from here on out I'm only going to be reviewing very specific restaurants, I want to mention a few things about Scottish cuisine that will hopefully help you decide whether or not you want to try it or bail and run to the safety of Burger King (which I should also mention, are no where near what they are in the states. US fast food may not be excellent food, but it is far superior to its equivalent in Europe.)

First and foremost - try Haggis. Not only should you do it simply from a sense of duty in visiting Scotland, but it's wonderful. It really is delicious. Don't ask what's in it, just have some. If you don't like it at least you can say you've tried it. But it is very good. Even just chip shop haggis is pretty tasty, though if you can swing it have it somewhere nice. My first time over I was on a serious budget, and though had no particular desire to try haggis; it was on one of my hotel's included-meal menu. So it was that or nothing. And I'm so pleased because it's something I really love.

Secondly, have some sausage here. Sausage in Britain is not what it is in the US. I grew up hating sausage - until I came here. It's a big source of meat for the Scots, and they know how to do it well. If you want to taste - test some British sausage before buying, stop by Crombies Butchers on Broughton Street where they often have samples about of some of their very, very tasty meats.

Another big tip to be aware of is that there are virtually no free refills in Britain. This came as a very hard bit of news to me in my move here, but I have begun to adjust. On nothing from cokes to coffee, it's a very, VERY rare place that offers refills, so keep that in mind when you order.

Chip shops are good as well. They are cheap, and greasy, and not the healthiest form of food you will eat, but they can produce some very tasty food to get you through the day if you're on a budget. And even if not, you should sample something from what is such a British institution.

And other than that, sample and enjoy!

Edinburgh is a town filled with bars and pubs reminiscent of some historic figure, and choosing which one to make your Edinburgh memories with can be quite a task. The Conan Doyle, named after the creator of the beloved Sherlock Holmes character, sits in a very enticing position in town, not 5 minutes off Princes Street heading into the new town area. It sits on a corner, its big windows and rich green exterior very inviting, particular to the weary traveller with bags in tow coming from the bus station, only a 2-minute walk away.

It is a nice pub, and though it's not a bad place to eat, I do caution that it is indeed a pub first, even if the exterior and seating area looking out over Picardy Place suggest otherwise. It is a bit smoky and the atmosphere close, which can be very comforting on a chilly Edinburgh afternoon. It's a warm atmosphere, though, with a good bar and an open fire.

It's a nice place to look at, but unfortunately, it has its downsides. If you're looking for a nice eating atmosphere, go elsewhere. This is, at its heart, a pub. The staff are at best adequate, often in dour moods, and in general the service is standard to poor. The food, though not bad, is deeply ordinary and a bit pricey. It is pub food, no matter how much it costs or how nice it sounds. The steak pie is probably the nicest thing on the menu, being very tasty for pub food, but in my opinion, it's not worth £6.50. The side orders are bland to the point of being a disappointment. Having said that, they do have Caffreys Velvet Ale on tap for an excellent £1.75 a pint. It's a drink worth coming to Edinburgh for and somewhat hard to find on tap.

If you're looking for a nice meal out, there is no limited supply of choices in the central Edinburgh area, and I would put the Conan Doyle farther down my list. But if you want a moment of Scottish atmosphere, to sit in a pub having a flavourful beer near the birthplace of the man the pub was named after, it can be a very pleasant experience to take home.

Steak is not for everyone, but if you are someone who likes a good steak while out enjoying a new town, there's little more disappointing than wandering around to find that place that sells a good steak, settling into the atmosphere and then getting a steak you could have had in any local diner. And as any steak lover knows, a badly cooked steak is no steak at all.

The Smoke Stack, then, is somewhere that I highly recommend. It is one of my top three favourite Edinburgh restaurants, regardless of the steaks, and though isn't a cheap restaurant, is very good value for what it is.

There are, in fact, two Smoke Stacks in Edinburgh, one on Broughton Street in New Town and one on the Shore. Though the food and service is good in both, the one on the shore is infinitely more roomy (even an excellent steak and a good bottle of red wine can be ruined if your sitting just a half a foot away from someone talking loudly). Also the service, I found, in the Shore's Smoke Stack was superior.

Even if you aren't a steak lover, this is a great restaurant. They have a wide variety of chicken dishes, and lots of sides and I've not had anything there that wasn't very good. The prices range from £12-£20 per person, and as I said this is a good value for the quality. Both venues are nice though again the Shore is a little bit better.

And as for the steaks, they match anything I've had in Texas and are generally very well cooked. I highly recommend any of the steaks they offer, along with a bottle of Chilean red wine for an excellent night out.

Do keep in mind, though, for those travelling from the US; they don't have A1 in Britain, so you might consider packing a bottle with you. It does sound extreme, I admit, but I will also secretly admit to bringing a bottle into the restaurant once with me.

But with or with out the A1 sauce, this is a very good place to eat.

The other day I was waiting for a friend to meet me at The Olive Branch on Broughton Street for a coffee and a chat, and as I stood outside waiting, I noticed quite a lot of people - more than a few of them tourists stopping to look at the menu. It's a very stylish-looking place, and the things on the menu sound very enticing.

I myself had never actually been in there before and so was as curious as these other visitors to Edinburgh about this cozy, candlelit cafe. And though I generally rate a place with a good atmosphere higher than I would have otherwise, this is one I will have to warn people about. The atmosphere is very nice, though generally quite busy. There's not a lot of seating, but it's not too crowded. However, there are a lot of places that fit that description in Edinburgh. And this place had some fundamental drawbacks.

Namely, the service. Though they were polite and friendly, the service was dreadful. There were no less than 5 waitresses working one small room, all bustling around with nothing seeming to get done. While I waited for the rest of my party I ordered a coffee that took about 15 minutes to arrive, and this when there were only about four other tables full. When my friends did arrive, and the waitress finally arrived to take their order, they waited half an hour for a latte and the soup of the day. This kind of service can easily be excused when there is one waitress running a full place, but as I said, the opposite was the case here.

The food wasn't bad  - though it seemed very expensive for cafe food. The soup of the day was £3.50. And the main dishes were close to £10. The equivalent of some very nice restaurants on Broughton Street. The menu was also rather limited. The coffee was fine, but certainly nothing special, and I can easily list five other places with in 5 minutes' walk that the coffee is better.

So, in my opinion, this is a place to miss. There are so many nice places to try in Edinburgh, it's a shame to waste your visit on a place with ordinary food and bad service.

On the other end of the scale from the famous British chip shop is The Witchery by the Castle. This is somewhere that I always, without fail, recommend to friends visiting Edinburgh if they want one really flash meal. There are other restaurants in Edinburgh that are rated higher (such as Number One at the Balmoral or Martin Wishart at the shore, which both have Michelin stars), but restaurants such as those are a whole other level of 'fine dining' and price.

The food at The Witchery is top class, with a wonderful setting, but does not have the stuffy formal setting some of the others may. And the price is much better. (So if you are looking to splash out on a £100 meal, rather than a £400 meal.)

Aside from the wonderful food and agreeable service, for me the setting of The Witchery is its best selling point. I love it as a local, but it is its appeal to those visiting the city that makes it really great, as it so nicely sums up the vibe of Scotland's capital.

The walk along the cobblestone Royal Mile leads you up the winding and ancient street towards the castle at the top. And just before you get there, in a little nook just off to your left sits The Witchery. It would be easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. From the street you can look down into the windows of it and see the giant dripping candles along the windows, giving you an idea of the setting for this fantastic restaurant.

Once inside, it is a very nice, low lit setting. It's got a quiet and relaxed atmosphere, and the staff are very friendly and helpful. Candles flicker off the dark walls and amazingly painted and gilded ceilings. The entire restaurant is filled with tapestries and mirrors and paintings depicting the old Scottish links with France in the Auld Alliance. It is an amazing place just to see, and the food in such a setting does not disappoint.

They have a frequently updated menu (at an average of £30 per main course) full of local Scottish produce including the outstanding Aberdeen Angus beef and game. My first visit to The Witchery involved an amazing wild rabbit main course, while my friend had the Aberdeen Angus. And I must tell you, as a Texan, I am almost ashamed to concede that Angus was quite possibly—to this day—the best steak I have ever tasted. It was of incredible quality and cooked to perfection. And though it wasn't a 16-oz. T-bone, it was not a tiny portion, either. This is not a restaurant where you will leave hungry, if even the portions aren't huge.

They have an award-winning wine cellar including the Wine Spectator Best Award of Excellence in 2004.

I highly recommend you have a look at their website before heading in this direction. It's very comprehensive and well done. A top class restaurant.

In the little community of Stockbridge in Edinburgh’s New Town, I recently stumbled onto what was a very good find. The Buffalo Grill is somewhere that I have passed many, many times while shopping in Stockbridge (about a 20-minute downhill walk from the centre of town, or a very quick bus ride from most any bus stop on Princes or George Street) and often thought about stopping in because of how nice it looked.

You don't get very many 'grill' places in Edinburgh, and my Texas taste-buds were yearning for a bit of familiarity. But, as is too often the case in the town where you live, for years now I've been about to try it and at the last minute decided to opt for something I already knew was good. A grill place, in my opinion, rests entirely on how well they can cook a steak, and if it is cooked well—it's an excellent place to eat. If not, then it’s an actively bad place to go where your £7-15 of meal were just entirely wasted.

So just a few weeks ago I took a friend out for lunch and we decided to gamble and try the grill. And I'm happy to say that we left very happy and impressed. It's not flash, and the food is not amazing. But it's very solidly good, and different than a lot of stuff you find elsewhere in the city, at a very good price. For lunch I ordered one of their good selection of 4-oz. burgers (from chili to bacon, or BBQ) and was amazed at the quality I was getting for £3.75.

The setting is small and comfortable and the waiting staff was good. Nothing to write home about, but we did leave them a tip. The decor is American Southwest style, and doesn't feel overdone. It was a great place to have lunch, and despite the fact that the restaurant may not be of the highest standard, they obviously have a grill chef who knows what he's doing. My burger (ordered medium rare) was spot on, and the sauces that went with it were wonderful. I like to leave a restaurant feeling full, and even with the 4-oz. burger this was the case. (They also offer an 8-oz. for around £6) And even more importantly, my friend ordered a steak off the lunch menu for £7.95 and was very pleased with it. The quality did not rank that of the Smoke Stack or The Witchery; but for a much cheaper steak it was an excellent second option. Again cooked very well and served with fries and some salad.

They also do a wide variety of main courses, including some Mexican dishes and steak sandwiches, which I am thoroughly looking forward to going back and trying.

I recommend the Buffalo Grill mainly for the quality of their burgers, for about the same cost as a Burger King burger, but infinitely better.

I have mentioned The Olive Branch under the Edinburgh cafe/bistro category, but unfortunately, despite its good looks it falls down in many areas.

So on the upside of the same scale I want to mention what is quite possibly my favorite little local cafe in the city. It is true, that there are no shortages of great little places in Edinburgh to sit and have a coffee, or a bit of lunch; and Cafe Latte isn't the most central that you will find. But it is one of the nicest, non-chain coffee places you will find. Just on the corner of Broughton and Logie Green Road on the other side of Tesco in new town it sits on a pleasant little corner. It's a small place, with only enough indoor seating for about 7-10 people, all in bar style, looking out the window where you can leisurely watch passers by.

But on the sunny days that do appear in Edinburgh (and they are happening more and more) the outdoor seating is a very pleasant place to spend the morning enjoying what is easily the best value, and arguably the best tasting coffee in the city. Cafe Latte is a little family own cafe which focuses mainly on it's Costa Coffee and small sandwich bar which has wonderfully fresh Italian rolls and sandwiches, and well as some amazing little pastas and soups, all at a very reasonable price.

But the reason (aside from the fact that this is one of my favorite cafe's to spend my money on in the city) I mention it for this review is one little secret about it that I think any visitor to the city should know. Every time someone visits us for the weekend we spend our Sunday mornings there, and with out fail our company has been incredibly pleased with the quality and value.

It may be a bit of an Italian place, but this particular cafe does what I am certain is the best Scottish breakfast in the city. If you are visiting, (particularly from America as breakfast is a very different thing back in the states) you should sample a good Scottish breakfast. At Cafe Latte for about £4 you get a fried egg, toasted roll, two kinds of sausage, black pudding (which must be tried) tomato, and a very healthy sized cup of their fantastic coffee. I am someone who enjoys a healthy sized breakfast and never leave there wishing I had any more. It is a good size and very well made. Extremely tasty for the value.

Not to mention that the staff are very good, the owner himself is very often working and is always welcoming and friendly. A Costa Coffee has recently moved into the Tesco next door, and though I am not harshly against chains that do what they do well, it would be a shame for this great little cafe to suffer. Try it if you are in the area.

Though I'm sure that Indian food is a common staple in some parts of the US, where I am from, and most of the places I had lived before coming over to the UK, it was a rather rare thing to see an Indian restaurant and the names of these exotic spices they flavour their dishes were somewhat of a mystery to me. So the introduction to the wonder of Indian food was something that, as a food tourist, I was hugely looking forward to enjoying when I moved to the UK.

And to my delight I was not disappointed. So if there is the chance that you haven't previously tried Indian food, I would highly recommend that you give it a go while in Britain; in the same way I would recommend Mexican to those visiting Texas, as it is a different food than you get in its home country. (Tex-Mex, to those who have visited Mexico know, is a very different food to traditional Mexican, though no less wonderful.) The same can be said of Indian; and British-Indian food is a wonderful concoction. And the best place I have had the pleasure of enjoying this food in Edinburgh is the Prince Balti House.

Though a little bit out the way on the outskirts of town just past The Shore on Seafield Road, it's easy to get to by bus or with a car and is worth the little bit of extra effort. The food is fantastic, and though this is not a fine dining experience, it is incredibly flavourful and an altogether great place to eat. I took the last visitors I had from the US there for a night out before they left, and we spent the evening, just a short walk from some great pubs and the seashore, enjoying the delicious and varied menu, and sampling each other’s dishes to see who had the best.

Possibly my favourite thing about this particular restaurant is the staff. I don't know if I've come across staff in Europe so pleased and delighted to be of service, so happy to get your business and just so generally pleasant. The service was good, but mostly it was the genuine pleasure they got in serving us that made it so nice.

And I can't complain about the food either, in price, flavour, or quantity. Four of us each got one of their special dishes from Madras to Rogan Josh, as well as some poppadoms for around £6 each (about $12) gleefully sampling each other's different meals and went home stuffed.

This is such a nice place to eat that I can't recommend it enough. They have a Huge menu and often offer specials at a very good rate. They do take out as well with free delivery over £12 if you just feel like chilling out in your hotel.
They accept all major credit cards and are open 7 days a week. A Great place to sample British-Indian food.

On the other end of the scale from most of the penny-pinching and shoestring budget reviews I generally do, I bring you Martin Wishart.

For anyone coming to Edinburgh with a bit of a bank roll and wanting to really splash out for a proper top-chef, high quality meal, then I am pleased to be able to recommend this little restaurant on the shore.

A few months ago a friend of mine from England returned from a round the world trip and wanted to celebrate his return by taking some friends around to some of the best restaurants in Britain. He is a chef who has worked in some highly regarded restaurants in London and so we were happy to take his word on where the places to eat with a big budget are.

When he and an Australian friend arrived in Edinburgh he had two Michelin star restaurants on his list; Number One at the Balmoral and Martin Wishart, which we joined him in.

I myself, though a huge fan of food, have trouble thinking of restaurants at this level as 'restaurants.' To me a meal of this caliber is more of an experience, like going to an art gallery and getting to sample the art on your palate.

And in this, Martin Wishart was extraordinary. For me personally, the idea of having to pay for such a meal (I won't frighten you with what our final bill for the night actually was) dampens the enjoyment of the food itself, but as this was a birthday treat; I was able to sit back and just enjoy the atmosphere and the food wonders that kept appearing before us.

I will admit up front that I have little experience of other such restaurants, and therefore find it hard to compare, but I can tell you that not only was everything cooked to artistic perfection, but that my friend the chef said in the end that of all the restaurants they toured in Britain, Martin Wishart was the overall best. Praise indeed.

The only thing I would fault it for was the service, which I thought was sub-par for what we paid for the food. It wasn't bad, but did have drawbacks, and when my meal costs £60 I think the service should be perfect.

Apart from that though, it was a night to remember, and if fine dining is something you like to splash out on a trip, you can't really go wrong here.

All the food we had was both beautifully cooked and presented. We had the 6 course tasting menu, which lasted (along with several bottles of wine) well into the night. An altogether amazing experience.

As a side note, if you really love such cooking but don't have several extra hundred pounds in your budget to have dinner here, Martin Wishart offers a 3 course set price lunch for £20.50.

My only other advice is to book well in advance if you want to try it. Enjoy!

The Outsider was one of those special find restaurants that you stumble onto when you live in a city for a while. One night when out with some friends who live on the other side of town from me, we went into one of their favourite bars, Bar Kohl on George IV Street Bridge (reviewed in the Edinburgh Pub Crawl Review) and after a few hours of cocktails we decided we needed some food and wandered across the street to a restaurant I had never heard of at the time, The Outsider.

The friends I was out with were somewhat bigger spenders that I am, and I was cringing when I took up the menu given how nice the place looked and what we had been spending on cocktails already all night. Not to mention that one of the friends who came with us was a chef from London and only really takes us to nice places.

But to my very pleasant surprise the menu was very reasonable and also very impressive. The restaurant itself is also a pleasant surprise. It doesn't exactly jump out at you - I'm sure I've passed it hundreds of times and never even seen it before. And apparently it's quite hard for out of towners to find, though it's easy enough if you just look for Bar Kohl and then go directly across the street.

The interior is very nice, and very classy (again suggesting a more pricey menu) with dark walls and low lit rooms. Our upstairs table over looked the restaurant below in a darkish little alcove lit mostly by candles. But it also has a bit of a hip vibe, and I've heard it can also be quite lively from time to time. The waiting staff were very good... always ready when we needed something but not at all intrusive. But most importantly, the food was absolutely amazing. I will try to temper my enthusiasm given that I was very hungry and a little bit tipsy on my last visit, but I must say that everything I tasted there that night was amazingly well cooked.

It's not at all pretentious, and the portions aren't tiny or overly artfully presented. But the presentation was very nice and classy and the food was cooked To Perfection. The friend on my left ordered the steak (at £13, a very good price for a steak in Edinburgh at night) and it was miraculous. Beaten only in Edinburgh by The Witchery whose steak is around £22. Absolutely perfectly cooked, a good sized portion and excellently seasoned.

I had Scottish venison with red cabbage and potatoes which was easily the best venison I've ever tasted, and coming from middle Tennessee with the luxury of very fresh venison, I can be a bit of a snob about it. But it was astounding, and absolutely melted when it hit my tongue. We tried an array of things from scallops to a pear desert, all of which were very very nice indeed.