David Bann Restaurant.

David Bann Restaurant

The cheese pudding is double-baked on smoked Isle of Kintyre cheddar, in a kitchen that has cooked no meat since it opened in 2002.

Why go

The room opened at 56-58 St Mary's Street in 2002 and has traded meat-free for twenty-four years, which is a long run for any restaurant and a very long one for a vegetarian kitchen.1 Harden's calls it A leading light of vegetarian cuisine in Edinburgh for more than two decades and, in an earlier edition, This pioneering venue... has kept its crown as the city's best-known veggie.2 The kitchen works across several traditions on one list, with a Korean pickle, a Sicilian risotto, a Mexican bean chilli and a Scottish smoked cheddar all in play at once, and the second-bake technique on the cheese pudding is the clearest signal that this is composed cooking. Harden's diners describe the results as beautifully presented dishes, often of complex structure and ingredients. The restaurant carries the chef-owner's name over the door, and Harden's wrote about the cooking as his as recently as its 2023 edition. Who stands at the pass today is not stated by any source this entry cites.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the smoked tofu with Korean cucumber pickle. Harden's names it the signature, and it is the plate that shows the reach of the list in one go.2
• Order: the double-baked smoked Isle of Kintyre cheese pudding. A second bake is what gives a souffle pudding its lift and its set, and running that method on a Scottish smoked cheddar is the most technical thing on the menu.
• Order: the veggie haggis if you want the Scottish end of the range, and the risotto alla Norma if you want the Mediterranean end. Both sit on the same list.
• Order: the whisky pannacotta with meringue, pear and caramel sauce, which Keith Davidson had in 2017 as the close to two lighter courses.1
• Avoid: booking this for a conversation you need to hear. Harden's most recent write-up calls the outfit enjoyable but noisy.2
• Avoid: arriving with one dish in mind. The venue says the menu changes with the season, and the plates named here are dated to the pieces that named them.

What locals & experts say

• Keith Davidson, Time Out Edinburgh (2017): four stars out of five, under the line Top-drawer vegetarian food that even meat eaters will love. His judgment on the cooking itself: the cooking is reliably creative but doesn't carry the soporific after-effects that you might suffer following an encounter with a heavy curry, pasta or meat dish in the middle of the day. He had the parsnip, apple and Strathdon Blue cheese pudding, a light bake of root veg and Bramley apple served with roast spuds, swede and a Puy lentil stew.1
• Harden's (2026 edition): the survey's own diner line is the sharpest sentence anyone has written about this kitchen, and it moves the argument off the dietary label entirely: I go there because the food's delicious and the service lovely, not because it's vegetarian. An earlier edition rates the cooking top-notch and creative, producing beautifully presented dishes, often of complex structure and ingredients.2
• Mika Morava, The Skinny: a second writer lands on the same argument. From tartlets to thai fritters and crepes to coconut cauliflower, even hard core meat eaters should be swayed by this menu.3
• The gap, stated plainly: this restaurant holds no MICHELIN standing and appears in none of the Scottish award rosters this project caches.

Good to know

• Booking: worth doing, and bookable online up to an hour before the sitting. The restaurant takes walk-ins when there is room. Tables over six go by phone or email.
• Timing: it runs as an all-day restaurant. The lunch menu runs Sunday to Friday from noon to 4pm.
• Price: the lunch menu is GBP 24.50 for two courses and GBP 31 for three. A group set menu for six or more runs GBP 26.50 and GBP 34, with the full menu also available to smaller groups. Harden's puts a bottle of wine at GBP 28 and a service charge of 12.5 percent.
• Groups: a set menu exists specifically for tables of six and up, which is the practical reason to put a mixed group here.
• Dietary: the whole menu is vegetarian, so a vegetarian can order blind off it, which Keith Davidson names as the structural benefit of the place. Vegan and gluten-free options are on the list, every beer is vegan and Scottish, and the restaurant runs vegan five-course dinners paired with wines from Vegan Tipples.
• Kids: children of all ages are welcome, per the restaurant.
• Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, and the inspection is dated 26 April 2022, which is four years and three months old at this pass. The hygiene register is not current about these premises, and a Pass from 2022 says what the kitchen was doing in 2022.
• Getting there: the bottom third of St Mary's Street, off the Royal Mile where the High Street becomes the Canongate. Around 130 m from the city center.

Jeff's take (his words)

The case for it is a 2002 opening still trading meat-free, a four-star Time Out review, four consecutive Harden's editions, and a vegetarian answer no other Edinburgh room in this city gives.

Verdict

could-visit — Twenty-four years of cooking no meat at all, in one Old Town room, with a menu that runs a Korean cucumber pickle, a risotto alla Norma, a Mexican bean chilli and a double-baked smoked Isle of Kintyre cheese pudding at the same time. The second bake is the tell: that is composed restaurant cooking, and Harden's diners back it up, calling the plates 'beautifully presented dishes, often of complex structure and ingredients'. Keith Davidson gave it four stars in Time Out and put his finger on why it works at lunch, which is that the cooking is creative without flattening you for the afternoon. What holds it at could-visit is the age of the evidence. The newest bylined verdict on this food is from 2017, there is no guide standing, and no award this project can cite, so a general diner going out of their way is going on a survey guide and a nine-year-old review. For one reader it is a different call entirely: if you are vegetarian, or you are the person booking for a table with a vegetarian at it, this is the first send in Edinburgh and the group set menu starts at six covers.