Alby's Leith
Every sandwich comes on focaccia and the fillings change week to week, so order what is on the board today rather than what you read about.
Why go
Roberta Hall-McCarron runs The Little Chartroom, which MICHELIN lists in its 2026 guide, and this counter on Portland Terrace is one of five places she named when asked where she actually eats around Edinburgh.1 It is not in the MICHELIN guide itself, checked against two complete captures of the 2026 Edinburgh directory, which is what you would expect of a sandwich counter.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the fried chicken kiev, on Hall-McCarron's instruction:
I've had the fried chicken kiev a couple of times which is so good – so definitely order that if it's on the menu.
1 - Avoid: planning around any single sandwich, including that one. Her own qualifier is the operative part: if it is on the menu. The list rotates.
What locals & experts say
- Roberta Hall-McCarron, easyJet Traveller: the chef-patron of The Little Chartroom, up the road in the same district, on what this place is and how it cooks.
A sandwich shop in Leith. The menu changes all the time and they serve all their sandwiches on great focaccia.
1 - The company she puts it in: the same five-name list holds Spry Wines, Timberyard, Bross Bagels on Manderston Street and the Twelve Triangles branch at 90 Brunswick Street. Timberyard holds a MICHELIN star, so this is a chef ranking a sandwich counter alongside the room she says she would eat in every week.1
- Everyone else: nobody. No second published voice on this venue was found. The MICHELIN guide does not list it, which is expected for the format, and no local review surfaced. Hers is the only recommendation on the record.
Good to know
- Hygiene: no Food Standards Agency record exists for this premises. That is a gap in the register, or a trading name it files differently, and it says nothing either way about the kitchen.3
- Price and hours: not established. No source read for this entry states either. Check the shop's own site before making the trip.
- Format: a counter, for a sandwich on the move, in the words of the chef who recommends it.
- A different Alby's: there is an Alby's in Camberwell, London, a pizzeria under separate ownership. Same name, no relation.
- Getting there: 8 Portland Terrace, in Leith, near the Fort.
Jeff's take (his words)
The case for it is a single line: a chef whose own restaurant is MICHELIN-listed puts this sandwich counter on her short list of where she eats.
Verdict
could-visit — Roberta Hall-McCarron runs The Little Chartroom, which MICHELIN lists, and when an interviewer asked where she eats around Edinburgh she gave five names, four of them errands rather than occasions. This was one: a Leith sandwich shop whose menu rotates constantly and whose sandwiches all come on focaccia. She names the fried chicken kiev and says she has ordered it more than once. That is a real practitioner vote on a counter that no guide covers, and it is the entire published case for the place. There is no price on record, no opening hours, and no second voice; the hygiene record is a Pass from May 2026, found after scoring under the register's Portland Place spelling. It sits at could-visit because the recommendation is genuinely good and the file behind it is genuinely thin.