Dogstar.

Dogstar

James Murray earned a Michelin star working at Timberyard, then took a pub that had stood empty five years and put twenty-six seats in it.4

Why go

The premises were the Portland Bar until 2020, and this opened in November 2025 with Murray cooking and Kyle Jamieson and Michael Lynch of the Leith cocktail bar Nauticus on the drinks.4 Murray came up through Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, Roussillon in Chelsea and Lyle's in Shoreditch, then went to Nur in Hong Kong, where he became head chef as the restaurant took a star inside its first few months. The award body's own profile states what he did with all that: hyper-seasonal, ingredient-led cooking built on relationships with growers, farmers, foragers, hunters and fishermen, moved into a casual room.9 You can watch it happen from the curved bar, which is tiled in Battenburg colors and looks straight into the kitchen.1 Shellfish goes over coals, and the waste discipline shapes what the kitchen writes down each day; Bite's reviewer found radishes turned orange by fermenting and then pickling, served against creamy cod roe.2 Newhaven harbour is a few minutes north, and it shows in how much of the list comes out of the sea. In its first full year the National Restaurant Awards placed it 51st in the UK, twenty-six rungs below the kitchen where Murray took his star.5

Order this / avoid

• Order: the crispy pig's head (GBP 10 as reviewed). Gaby Soutar bit into those super crispy-coated meaty blocks, with an accompanying date-y sweet molasses of a brown sauce.1
• Order: the comté gougères (GBP 12), which arrive cold. Soutar found puffs of undulating choux, each filled with a custardy liquid cheese that was dotted by tiny cubes of jamon.1
• Order: whatever the kitchen has put over the fire. Sharon Wilson's mussels cooked over coals, arrive with a charcoal edge that deepens their sweetness.2
• Order: the beef tartare with a Red Pepper Paloma, on the bar trade's advice, and the oyster leaf martini, which is the one drink both reviewers picked out.3
• Avoid: any of the above as a plan. The venue says its menus change on a daily and weekly basis, so every dish here was on one dated night.7
• Avoid: eating the way a reviewer eats. Wilson's bill crept over GBP 100 a head, and she says in the same paragraph that the purpose of her visit was to try as much as possible and that individual dishes feel fairly priced.2

What locals & experts say

• Gaby Soutar, The Scotsman (December 2025), made it her dinner of the year. Dogstar really has 'it' - that elusive gravitational pull, when all elements just meld together beautifully. I dreamt about the place that night, and it was the first thing I thought about when I woke up. She also caught what the room had already done to its street: it was hoaching on a Thursday night, in a Newhaven-Leith border neighbourhood that's usually pretty dead.1
• Sharon Wilson, Bite Magazine (February 2026), read the method off the plates. The fermented and pickled radishes delivered a bright piquancy that played beautifully against the creamy roe and sweet onions. It also alerted us to the fact that Dogstar's menu turns on the foraged and natural larder, elevated with technique and a confident, culinary hand. Her verdict names the constraint doing the work: a menu that avoids waste and treats every available ingredient with purpose. That discipline unlocks creativity rather than constraint.2
• Natasha Corfield, CLASS (January 2026), scored it 9 out of 10 in the UK bar trade's own magazine, and she was reviewing the drinks. The Red Pepper Paloma is easily the best twist on a Paloma I've ever had, and even more enjoyable alongside the beef tartare - outstanding.3
• National Restaurant Awards 2026, 51st in the UK Top 100. The body is William Reed's Restaurant magazine, voted by an industry academy, and Rosalind Erskine's report names all eight Scottish placings.5
• James Murray, announcing it in August 2025, on why this room and why then: We've been talking about creating a fun, food-and-drink-led space for a few years now, and The timing and this site just feel right.4

Good to know

• Hours: Thursday 5.30pm to 9pm, then Friday, Saturday and Sunday for lunch 12pm to 2pm and dinner 5.30pm to 9pm. Monday to Wednesday it is dark. The kitchen stops at nine every night it opens, so this is an early dinner.7
• Booking: book. Twenty-six seats, four trading days, and Bite waited a while for a table on a room that had been open three months.2
• Children and dogs: the venue states it cannot accommodate either, in its own words, dugs and weans (children).7
• Price: as reviewed in December 2025, snacks GBP 8 to 12, mains GBP 18 to 35, chips GBP 6, desserts GBP 10, cocktails GBP 12.50 to 13.1
• Where to sit: ask for the curved bar. It faces straight into the kitchen.1
• Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 16 January 2026, with no re-inspection pending as at 4 August 2026. Current.8
• Getting there: 17 Portland Place, at the Newhaven end of Leith. Alby's is a minute away at 8 Portland Terrace, which is a different street with the same postcode.
• A different Dogstar: there is a long-running bar of the same name on Coldharbour Lane in Brixton, London. No relation.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: Multiple recs including Nick nairn.

Verdict

should-visit — James Murray took a Michelin star at Timberyard, cooked at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons under Raymond Blanc, at Roussillon and at Lyle's, and ran the kitchen at Nur in Hong Kong as it took a star inside its first few months. He put that into twenty-six seats in a pub that had stood empty five years, with an open kitchen and a menu rewritten daily off a seasonal and foraged larder under hard waste discipline. The Scotsman, Bite Magazine and CLASS came back positive from three directions: Gaby Soutar made it her best dinner of 2025 in the Scotsman, Sharon Wilson read the discipline off the plates down to radishes fermented then pickled against cod roe, and the UK bar trade scored the drinks 9 out of 10. In its first full year the National Restaurant Awards academy placed it 51st in the UK, twenty-six rungs below the kitchen where Murray starred. That is a clear standout on craft and it earns a detour across the city. It holds below must-visit because the menu changes daily, so there is no one dish to send a person for, and no dish on it is unavailable elsewhere. The twenty-six seats and four trading nights make it hard to get into, and scarcity is a footnote here, never the argument.