Edinburgh, for
a big group
33 open rooms tagged for it
Eight of us want one table in August, and we do not all eat the same things.
Take a mixed table of eight to a food hall, where everyone orders from a different counter and nobody negotiates a menu. Bonnie & Wild's Scottish Marketplace in the St James Quarter runs nine kitchens and about 400 seats, from Gary Maclean's seafood counter to Sri Lankan curry and vegan, and the venue's own line is No need to book, even for large groups
. One current trader, Chooks, holds an Improvement Required from March 2024, and the page says so.
The Pitt Market is the same answer with an indoor hall and a children's area, Thursday to Sunday in Granton. Email the market to hold space for a party over eight, walk in free from the Granton Promenade, and eat across Nepalese, Lebanese and Japanese-Scottish stalls, with Lazeez fully halal. Read the hygiene line on that page first: the two registered food traders hold a Pass and the bar operation holds an Improvement Required from May 2025. In August, Assembly George Square Gardens is the walk-up food-truck version, serving into the small hours most nights with no booking taken or needed.
If you want one table with one kitchen, two rooms price a group in advance. The Radhuni in Loanhead runs banquets from six people at £35.95 a head in a dedicated group room, seats twelve without a negotiation, and its vegetarian mains are £13.95, so the two people at your table who eat no meat order off the same card as everyone else. Call ahead, because the banquets are pre-ordered. The Magnum pre-orders a fixed-price three-course menu for parties of eight and up, which few New Town rooms will do, and Memed takes parties from one to twenty on its own form with a £9.50 plate for a child.
David Bann is the booking when someone at the table eats no meat, because the whole menu has been meat-free since 2002 and the group set starts at six covers at £26.50 for two courses. Harden's diners put the case better than the label does: I go there because the food's delicious and the service lovely, not because it's vegetarian.
Last checked Aug 2026
Where they are
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The Port of Leith Distillery?
Solid · Single malt distillery, tours and a top-floor whisky bar · Leith · $$
book ahead
Nine storeys and forty metres of distillery, because the plot they could get was too small to lay one out flat.
Cafe Royaljust added
Solid · Pub · New Town · $$
book ahead
A tavern has traded on this corner since 1826, and two hundred years on the bar still gets through about a thousand Cumbrae rock oysters a week.
FIN & GRAPE
Solid · Restaurant · Morningside · $$$
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Under the dining room there is a second bar whose food list is tinned fish, each one named by its producer and the port it was packed in.
Nishikijust added
Solid · Sake bar · West End · $$
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A Japanese breakfast service, 9am to 11.30am, in a city that has almost none.
The Ship on the Shore?
Solid · Seafood · Leith · $$$
book ahead
Tom Kitchin sends people here for one bowl: cullen skink, smoked haddock, and his own kitchen at home cannot match it.
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society!
Solid · Whisky bar · New Town · $$$
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Every bottle the Society sells hides its distillery behind a number, a rule set in 1983 when consultant Russell Sharp told founder Pip Hills the distillery names were trademarked and could never go on a label.
The Black Grape
Solid · Small plates · Old Town · $$$
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Three weeks before the doors opened, on a street that sells shortbread by the ton, Gaby Soutar reported the promise: "there will be no haggis bon-bons."
The Radhuni
Solid · Restaurant · Edinburgh · $$
walk-in
A whole leg of lamb, butter-filled and marinated in house, feeds four for £325.95 with two days' notice and a deposit.
Smith & Gertrude Stockbridge
Solid · Wine bar · Stockbridge · $$
walk-in
The couple who own this bar also own the bakery whose bread comes out on the cheese board.
Stockbridge Eating House
Solid · Restaurant · Edinburgh · $$$
book ahead
The green Bell's Diner sign is still hanging over the door, and behind it is an 18-cover bistro serving hare and devilled mussels.
Black Ivy?
Listed · Bar · Marchmont · $$$
book ahead
The Scottish Bar & Pub Awards named the heated, awning-covered terrace over Bruntsfield Links the best outdoor area in Scotland in 2023, then again in 2024.
BrewDog DogHouse Edinburgh Hotel?
Listed · Craft beer hotel · Old Town · $$$
booking essential
This is the only DogHouse left in the United Kingdom.
The Keller
Listed · Pub · Edinburgh · $$
walk-in
A whole separate menu here runs on smoke, from the vodka to the beer to the martini.
The Pitt Market!
Listed · Street food · Granton · $
walk-in
Pizza Geeks and Choola both started as vans in this yard, and it is run as a not-for-profit community company.
Johnnie Walker Princes Street?
Listed · Whisky attraction with a rooftop cocktail bar · New Town · $$$
book ahead
Mr Lyan Studio set the brief for the rooftop cocktail list, and Scott Smith of Blank Plate Creative runs the kitchen underneath it.
Mother India's Cafe?
Listed · Indian · Old Town · $$
book ahead
Punjabi spices and yoghurt, baked over the haddock the east coast lands, for GBP 9.75.
The Magnum
Listed · Restaurant · New Town · $$$
book ahead
A two-course table d'hote runs until 5pm, Monday to Saturday, and it turns a room with a £34 fillet on the card into a £25 lunch.
Memed Barbecue Grill & Meze Bar!
Listed · Turkish · Southside · $$
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The grill list runs to küşleme, çöp şiş and charcoal liver shish, which is an ocakbaşı card and not a doner counter's.
Cold Town House
Listed · Bar · Old Town · $$
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Scott Campbell cooks at Badger & Co for a living, and this is the Grassmarket room he brings his own kids to.
PIGGS Bruntsfield?
Listed · Wine Bar · Bruntsfield · $$
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The owners' father opened Iggs on Jeffrey Street in 1989, one of the first Spanish restaurants in Scotland.
Lost in Leith
Listed · Craft beer bar and barrel-ageing room · Leith · $$
walk-in
Three ten-hectolitre oak foeders stand at the back of the archway, bought new from a cooperage near Cognac because the second-hand ones were the wrong size and came with a waiting list.
The Dome
Listed · Bar · New Town · $$$
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The Commercial Bank of Scotland used to run its headquarters out of this room, and the banking hall is now the bar.
Bonnie & Wild's Scottish Marketplace
Listed · Scottish · New Town · $$
walk-in
Julie Lin folds Malaysian tacos at Tacos Lah, Gary Maclean works Scottish seafood at Creel Caught, and the 400 seats between them will take a party of eight with no booking.
Holyrood Distillery
Listed · Producer · Southside · $$
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The tour pours new make, the clear spirit that goes into the cask before it is whisky at all.
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, The Vaults
Listed · Members whisky bar · Leith · $$$
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The Society's founding syndicate paid GBP 50,000 for this old J&G Thomson bonded wine warehouse in 1983, and the door has taken members and their guests ever since.
Mara?
Listed · Wine bar and small plates · Leith · $$
book ahead
The crew behind a nearby sports bar wrote this room a wine list that runs to orange and natural.
56 North
Listed · Bar · Southside · $$
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The gin they pour here is distilled on the bar's own stills, standing inside the room you drink it in.
David Bann Restaurant
Listed · Restaurant · Old Town · $$
book ahead
The cheese pudding is double-baked on smoked Isle of Kintyre cheddar, in a kitchen that has cooked no meat since it opened in 2002.
Howies Waterloo Place
Listed · Scottish · New Town · $$
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Howies keeps cullen skink and traditional haggis on the card whatever else the season turns over, at GBP 10.25 and GBP 9.95, in a Georgian hall of 1815 under Calton Hill.
First Coast Restaurant?
Listed · Modern Scottish · Gorgie/Dalry · $$
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A monkfish tail was the cheapest main on the card at £12.95, in a city where monkfish is usually the most expensive fish on it.
Three Birds!
Listed · Modern Scottish · Bruntsfield · $$$
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Two women have run this Bruntsfield room since 2012 and no critic has been back since the year it opened.
BrewDog Edinburgh Lothian Road
Listed · Brewery · Tollcross · $$
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One of eleven BrewDog bars in the UK and Ireland that survived the company's administration in March 2026.
Montpeliers!
Listed · Bar · Bruntsfield · $$
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Jules Clark of Montpeliers won the Unsung Hero Award at the 2024 Scottish Bar and Pub Awards, which is an award for a person and not for this room.
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