Marchmont

The green space at the middle of the south side has a ring of small kitchens around it, and they cook for the people who live there. Going clockwise from the west, Bruntsfield holds two seafood rooms in LeftField and FIN & GRAPE, one of them cooked by a single chef for 24 seats. Marchmont holds three tiny set-menu rooms, NADAIR, Argile with ten counter seats and one man behind them, and Mara's Picklery with 22 covers and a menu handwritten daily. Salvatore's does the classic chippy on the same side. Southside and Newington run the cheapest and the most specific food in the city: Chennai's Marina for Sri Lankan, Memed Barbecue Grill & Meze Bar for an ocakbasi grill, Kebab Mahal for late Punjabi, and 徐州地鍋 Xu Zhou Ground Pot Chinese Restaurant for the food of one Chinese prefecture. Condita holds a star behind a shopfront on Salisbury Place that the Good Food Guide says you could walk straight past. Pomelo sits just over the line in The Grange with hand-ripped noodles, and Canny Mans has poured whisky on Morningside Road since 1871.