La Cime
Anne Quintin's family in the Lozère butcher a whole pig every January, and the pâté on her counter comes off the recipe in their notebook.2
Why go
She cooks and her husband Will Blamire runs the room and the wine, and the two met at Restaurant Martin Wishart in 2012 when she was on a summer internship and he was running the floor.2 The decade between then and here is the interesting part: both worked luxury yachts, with Anne as the sole chef doing the ordering, the provisioning, the peeling and the washing up, which is where a menu this wide out of one small kitchen comes from. Will went on to head a Majestic Wine store, which is why there is a monthly four-course wine dinner and why L'Art du Vin is on the supplier list. La cîme takes its name from her childhood address in the Lozère, and it is pronounced seam. The room runs as three things at once: a café and shop through the day, and a bistro on Friday and Saturday nights. Twelve suppliers are printed on the menus, Angelou Bakery and Mr Eion among them.3 Anne Pia's line on the pair is short and right: Will is a formidable wine expert, Anne is a redoubtable cook and baker.
1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the pâté, GBP 14.50, for two with a baguette, pickles and salad. It runs at both services, as pork at dinner and pork and wild porcini at lunch, and Anne's line on the recipe is that if she is making it,
I would only use that recipe.
2 - Order: a scone, GBP 3.95. Will Blamire's own pick is the savoury one, roast potato and cheddar, and it comes as a soup pairing for GBP 9.2
- Order: the harissa fried eggs on sourdough with house-made dukkah, GBP 9.50, which is what the brunch menu leads on.3
- Order: at dinner, the ox cheek osso bucco with orzo and gremolata or the monkfish à l'armoricaine, both GBP 19 and both the top of the list.3
- Order: the rabbit ragu with tagliatelle when it appears, which is Anne Quintin's own pick off her list.2
- Order: the coffee, which is Mr Eion's and was the first supplier the pair settled on. Anne Pia rates it
among the best, if not the best in town.
1 - Order: the nougat glacé if it is on. Anne Pia found it
more like a meringue in texture but holding its shape, its lightness and fruity freshness.
1 - Avoid: fixing on a dish. Both menus are headed sample, and Clem in the kitchen writes the weekend specials.2
What locals & experts say
- Anne Pia, Bite Magazine (November 2024), on the daytime counter, and it is the judgment this page rests on:
Delicious scones with, on one happy occasion, rhubarb and ginger homemade preserve, frittatas, brioches and other treats, along with excellent coffee are all on offer here and among the best, if not the best in town.
1 - Anne Quintin, to Joanna Biggers of Dulcify Journal (June 2026), on why the menu keeps moving:
We don't want to be on autopilot when we work; when you start not really having to think when you cook something, it means you need to change it. You never want to be bored when you're cooking.
2 - Will Blamire on his own kitchen hire, Clem, who writes the weekend specials:
she has come up with some really great dishes that people have enjoyed... she has really driven the standard in the kitchen.
2 - Anne Pia is the only arm's-length critic who has written about this room, and her piece is from November 2024. Everything else on the record is the owners' own words, the venue's own documents or a statutory record. No award has ever gone to it, and it is absent from the Good Food Guide's Britain's 100 Best Local Restaurants 2026, which does carry four other Edinburgh rooms. The List's nine top Edinburgh delis does not carry it either.5
Good to know
- Hours: open Thursday to Monday and shut Tuesday and Wednesday, with the door opening at half eight on the weekdays and half nine at the weekend, and closing late afternoon every day. Dinner is Friday and Saturday evenings only. The venue's own words are
we are open thursday to monday including dinner, bites and drinks on friday and saturday evenings
, and the day-by-day table on its site is the thing to check, because no two days are quite the same.3 - Booking: walk in for the café. Contact ahead for dinner, for the wine evening and for private dining, because there is no online booking system.3
- The wine evening is one Friday a month, four courses with matched wines on a region or a theme, starting at 6.30pm. Dates are announced in the shop and on the venue's Instagram, and there is no published calendar, so ask in person.3
- Private dining: exclusive use of the room for eight to twelve, on a bespoke menu. That is also the ceiling on any group booking.3
- Takeaway is 10 per cent off the counter prices, printed on the menu.3
- Price: dinner mains GBP 17 to 19, brunch GBP 6 to 12, counter items GBP 3.95 to 10, all read 4 August 2026. Three courses lands around GBP 30 to 35 before wine.3
- Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 2 June 2026, with no re-inspection pending as at 4 August 2026. Two months old and current.6
- Getting there: 210b Newhaven Road, uphill from Newhaven harbour and beside Victoria Park. The venue calls the patch Trinity, the postcode is Leith's EH6, and the street is Newhaven Road. Nobody arrives here from the Old Town by accident.
- A different La Cime: the two-Michelin-star restaurant of the same name is in Osaka and has no connection to this one. It will be the first thing any search returns.
Jeff's take (his words)
The case for going is a family charcuterie recipe sitting priced on a counter in Trinity, and a wine list run by someone who used to buy for a living.
Verdict
could-visit — One arm's-length critic has written about this room in two and a half years, and what she rates is the daytime counter: scones with homemade preserve, frittatas, brioches and coffee, all of it among the best, if not the best in town. That is a strong line and it is a line about a bakery counter. Behind it sits a real and unusual pedigree. A summer internship at Restaurant Martin Wishart in 2012, then years on luxury yachts with Anne as the only chef doing the ordering, the provisioning, the peeling and the washing up, then Will heading a Majestic Wine store, and all three land somewhere you can see: a wide menu out of what the owners call a wee kitchen, a monthly four-course wine dinner, twelve suppliers printed on both menus. The pate is a Lozere family recipe off a January whole-animal butchery, sold for two at GBP 14.50, and you can only get it here. Value is good, with dinner mains topping out at GBP 19 and three courses landing near GBP 30 to 35 before wine. What keeps it off the detour rung is the shape of the evidence. There is no award of any kind, and the Good Food Guide's Britain's 100 Best Local Restaurants 2026 does not carry it, which is a checked negative the entry now states with no citation behind it. No Edinburgh restaurant critic has ever written about this address. The Friday and Saturday dinner that would carry a higher rung has no arm's-length verdict on it from anybody. And the room shuts mid-afternoon five days a week, which is a fact about what a visitor can actually have. Go if you are in Trinity or walking up from Newhaven harbour, take the pate, a savoury scone and the coffee, and build the evening somewhere else.