L'Alba D'Oro
You can have your fish alla Romana here, fried with sage and onions, which is not an option most chip counters offer.1
Why go
The List's review credits this counter with nearly forty years at the front of fish-frying in the capital, and it is specific about what comes out: a golden, non-greasy jacket around a slab of flaky white haddock, and chips with a firm outside and a soft, yielding centre.1 A special fish runs alongside the haddock and can be monkfish, pollock, sea bass or halibut, and the same review says the wine list here puts most off-licences to shame.1 Edinburgh Evening News readers named it among their favourite city chippies in a 2024 social-media poll, which counts votes and carries no critic's byline.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: haddock alla Romana, with sage and onions. Ask what the special fish is before you commit to the haddock.
- Avoid: expecting a room. The hygiene register classifies the premises as a takeaway.
Good to know
- Address: 5-7 Henderson Row, at the Canonmills end of the New Town.
- Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 27 April 2022, FHRSID 93866. Fifty-one months old with no reinspection pending, so the row says little about the kitchen now.3
- Searching the hygiene register: only the full L'Alba D'Oro spelling returns the record.
- Hours: nobody publishes them. Unknown here rather than guessed.
Verdict
could-visit — A New Town chip shop that has been frying for close to four decades and offers something almost nobody else in the city does: your fish alla Romana, cooked with sage and onions, or breaded, or in the usual batter. The List's review is specific about the results, a golden and non-greasy jacket around flaky white haddock, and chips with a firm outside and a soft centre. A rotating special fish runs alongside the haddock and can be monkfish, pollock, sea bass or halibut. There is also a wine list, which the same review says puts most off-licences to shame, and that is a strange and useful thing to find at a chip counter. Edinburgh Evening News readers voted it among their favourite city chippies in 2024, which is a popularity signal rather than a verdict. One caveat that belongs here: the health register last inspected this counter in April 2022 and passed it, and four years is long enough that the row says little about the kitchen today.