Barry Fish
Barry Bryson cooked Edinburgh pop-ups for years, so the menu here is the shortlist of everything that worked.
Why go
Bryson ran his food as events, at the Fruitmarket Gallery and out at Jupiter Artland, which is why Gaby Soutar had never reviewed him before this: the pop-ups were here, then they're gone, like a shubunkin's memory.
1 Barry Fish opened in February 2025 on the Shore, in half the premises Mimi's Bakehouse gave up when it downsized, and the bakery is still next door. The room is his partner Robin's design, and the wire fish sculptures on the walls are by a local artist, Sheila Jardine. Michelin listed it in the 2026 guide with no distinction.3 The menu is built from dishes he has been refining for years, and by November 2025 it had grown a sea bass tartare and a half lobster with smoked fish agnolotti in brown butter.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Barry Fish pastrami (£13 in June 2025). It is trout, crusted in black pepper and coriander oil, marinated in treacle, served cool with dehydrated mauve grapes on top and aioli on the side. Soutar's description of the texture:
cool and gummy.
1 - Order: the house-smoked haddock kedgeree (£16). The egg arrives soft-yolked on top of turmeric-colored masala rice, and there are pickles at the bottom of the bowl, which is the detail that keeps the dish from going heavy.1
- Order: the fishcakes (£16) if you want to see the kitchen's ratio. They run
low on mashed potato filler, but made with lots of trout and hake, with dill fronds and interesting herbs threaded through,
panko crumbed and sea-salted, with an endive salad, pickled fennel and nonpareille capers.1 - Order: the Port of Leith trifle (£10) if it is on. The kitchen builds it with sherry from the distillery down the road.
- Avoid: ruling it out for a table that includes someone who does not eat fish. Soutar's note on the Sunday menu is that
You don't have to love fish, since there are plenty of other options to choose from.
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What locals & experts say
- Gaby Soutar, The Scotsman (June 2025): she filed it under the headline that it served her best lunch of 2025, and admitted she had held out for months.
I was getting quite bored of people telling me about how good it is, from fellow foodies to a guy in my fitness class.
On the bill:we ate like queens and the costs were very reasonable, in a city where it seems almost impossible to get a main course for under twenty quid.
Her note on the kedgeree, which her husband cooks himself, is the sharpest compliment in the piece:I can tell my other half wants to go home, scrunch up his own recipe and burn it.
1 - Gaby Soutar, The Scotsman (November 2025): she put it on her own shortlist off 43 new-restaurant reviews that year, writing that it
has quickly become something of an institution.
2 - MICHELIN Guide (2026): in the guide, filed under Leith, with no star and no Bib.3
Good to know
- Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme rates this premises a Pass, from an inspection on 13 May 2026. No re-inspection was pending as at 3 August 2026, so it is a current clearance under three months old.4
- Price: starters £13 to £14, mains £16, puddings £8 to £10, a cocktail £12, all as of June 2025.
- Drinking: the Leith Sunshine Punch (£12) is built on Lind & Lime Gin with pineapple, strawberry, lemon and fizz, which is the local distillery again.
- Days: not established here. The flagship review is a Sunday lunch, so confirm the current service pattern before planning around it.
- Getting there: 62 Shore, on the water in Leith, with Mimi's Bakehouse sharing the building if you want cake afterwards.
Jeff's take (his words)
The case for it is a Michelin listing in the 2026 guide plus two Gaby Soutar pieces, one of them a full review she headlined as her best lunch of the year.
Verdict
should-visit — Barry Bryson spent years cooking pop-ups around Edinburgh, at the Fruitmarket Gallery and out at Jupiter Artland, and Barry Fish is the first time the cooking has stood still long enough to book. The menu is the refined version of that decade: trout pastrami crusted in black pepper and coriander oil and marinated in treacle, octopus on whipped feta with persillade, a house-smoked haddock kedgeree, fishcakes built with as little potato as the mix will hold. Gaby Soutar reviewed it as her best lunch of 2025, came back to put it on her year-end shortlist off 43 reviews, and made the value case explicitly, that they ate like queens in a city where a main under twenty pounds is hard to find. Michelin listed it in the 2026 guide. It falls short of must-visit because that listing carries no distinction, and because a single critic at one masthead supplies effectively all the published evidence.