Tollcross
11 rooms on the Edinburgh list
This side of town is where the Japanese cooking is and where the quietest star hides. TIMBERYARD sits behind a big red door on Lady Lawson Street and works from whatever Scottish produce arrived that week. Yamato on Lochrin Terrace is the room Time Out calls probably the best Japanese food in the city, and its owners opened Nishiki on Morrison Street with a Japanese breakfast service almost nothing else in Edinburgh offers. Kanpai Sushi is the third, under the Castle in the theater block. Morrison Street doubles as the curry street, with Ignite four times an Asian Catering Federation title-holder for Edinburgh, and Vietnam House Restaurant on Grove Street runs a menu kept short because the kitchen is too small to carry a long one. The Palmerston anchors the Queensferry Street end with a bakery inside the restaurant. For drinking, Hey Palu is far enough up the West Port that the Old Town crowd does not follow, and Wee Vault Edinburgh pours a brewery's own range near Haymarket.
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Known for, here
The cheap pint in an old room2 here
- Bennets Bar — Four spirit casks stand on the gantry, and CAMRA's heritage record calls them the last set left in an Edinburgh pub.
- Cloisters Bar — Eight rotating cask lines mean a different list every visit, in a converted Tollcross parsonage.
Restaurants7
TIMBERYARD★
Destination · Restaurant · Tollcross · $$$$
booking essential
Behind a big red door on Lady Lawson Street, the kitchen works from a short list of Scottish produce and lets it carry the plate, which is harder than it sounds and is what the Michelin inspector singles out.
Hey Palu
Solid · Bar · Tollcross · $$
book ahead
Alex and Rachel Palumbo opened this Bread Street room in 2019 around amaro and aperitivo, and two of the city's best-known bartenders now send people here when the Old Town gets too loud.
Yamato
Solid · Restaurant · Tollcross · $$$
book ahead
The owner trained at the Sushi Chef Institute in California, which is why the nigiri is the part of the menu the critics point at.
The Hanging Bat
Listed · Bar · Tollcross · $$
walk-in
The biggest glass in the house is two thirds of a pint, which is a policy about tasting rather than a shortage of glassware.
Kanpai Sushi
Listed · Sushi · Tollcross · $$$
book ahead
The Times reports that Edinburgh's sushi regulars rate the sourcing and the knife work here above anywhere else in the city.
Lovecrumbs
Listed · Bakery · Tollcross · $
walk-in
The Skinny sends you in here for a jamaretti biscuit, which is the only item anybody has named at this counter.
Hajar’s Shawarma King
Listed · Syrian shawarma · Tollcross · $
walk-in
The man who built Glasgow's original shawarma shop sold it in 2019 to open this one.
Craft beer1
BrewDog Edinburgh Lothian Road
Listed · Brewery · Tollcross · $$
book ahead
One of eleven BrewDog bars in the UK and Ireland that survived the company's administration in March 2026.
Pubs & cask2
Bennets Bar?
Solid · Cask ale and malt whisky pub · Tollcross · $
walk-in
Four spirit casks stand on the gantry, and CAMRA's heritage record calls them the last set left in an Edinburgh pub.
Cloisters Bar
Listed · Pub · Tollcross · $$
walk-in
Nineteen taps, and eight of them are a different beer every time you come back.
Coffee1
Beatnik Coffee?
Listed · Specialty coffee · Tollcross · $
walk-in
The house rules are the first thing on their own site: "No WiFi. No laptops. Loud music."
Elsewhere in Edinburgh