Lucky Yu
Michelin added this room in an April 2026 monthly round rather than at the ceremony, so it is in the 2026 guide without appearing in the guide's February roster.1
Why go
The inspector's note is short and it is about the food, not the room: from the karaage to the signature Dirty Rice, this is unfussy food piled high with flavour,
and save space for the apple pie gyozas.1 The standing is a plain selection, no Star and no Bib. The guide files the cooking as Asian Influences, prices it at ££, and flags it for solo dining.
The business is older than this address. Lucky Yu started in 2018 as a small canteen on Leith Walk and moved here in 2023, into the Broughton Street unit Smoke Stack had held for decades.3 Owners Meredith Wilkie and John Howard opened the new room with Duncan Adamson, previously of Gardener's Cottage, in the kitchen.2 The menu is now led by head chef Hearty Derlet with Filip Bobrowski, and the restaurant is one of four in Howard's Òir Group alongside Uncle Tiger, The Captain Darling and Bodega. Sake and cocktails are mixed at the bar, where there is more casual seating.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Dirty Rice. Michelin's inspector names it the signature.1
- Order: the potatoes. The Scotsman's critic found
properly crunchy and caramelised seams
under a rough plaid of umamimaise, tonkatsu sauce and pink togarashi,all splurged on as if someone had used a paintball gun.
2 - Order: venison gyoza, steamed. The filling is meat and black garlic, and there is a fried option if you want the crust instead.
- Avoid: splitting a bao bun. One set of hands, one bun.
- Avoid: the dark chocolate miso and black sesame delice if salt bothers you. Soutar found "the balance was slightly out of whack and the sodium was winning."
What locals & experts say
- Gaby Soutar, The Scotsman (2023), scored the room 9/10 and the food 8/10, and closed on the point that matters:
none of the food here is anodyne. We're talking big fun favours, lovely staff and the sort of space you want to linger in.
2 She was blunt about the earlier sites too, having visited the Leith Walk and Tollcross rooms and found themso-so,
and she credited the change to the Broughton Street site and the new hire in the kitchen. That kitchen has since changed hands again, so read her dish notes as a record of May 2023. - MICHELIN Guide, 2026, selected, with the inspector adding that
the chatty and attentive service is the final piece of a very enjoyable picture.
1 - John Howard, owner, to Larder Magazine (2026):
After more than a decade running and developing restaurants, this is really significant milestone for The Òir Group and for Lucky Yu.
3 - The List, on the first site (archived, pre-2022), shows the house dishes were there from the start:
Tiny, friendly Leith Walk newcomer which crams a lot of flavour into a simple menu starring gorgeous gyozas and brilliant bao buns.
4 That room is closed and this is not it.
Good to know
- Booking: the restaurant runs its own bookings and Michelin tells you to contact it directly rather than going through a platform.1
- Solo: the guide flags this one for solo dining, and the seats to ask for are the window or the counter.
- Price: small plates ran GBP 5 to GBP 10 and cocktails GBP 9 when The Scotsman ate here in 2023. Michelin prices it at ££.
- Getting there: Broughton Street, at the New Town's northeast edge, a short walk from the top of Leith Walk.
- Hours: no source cited here publishes them.
- Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 14 October 2024, which is twenty-two months ago. The hygiene register holds nothing more recent for these premises.
- Note: Saved with no note.
Verdict
could-visit — A Michelin inspector walked in and liked it, and that is the whole of the case, which is enough for a solid rung and not more. The standing is a plain selection in the 2026 guide, added in the April monthly round, with no Star and no Bib, and the guide's own summary of the cooking is 'unfussy food piled high with flavour'. That is an accurate description of what the place is: Asian sharing plates at a middle price, in the old Smoke Stack room on Broughton Street, run well. The one published review backs it and dates from 2023, when The Scotsman's Gaby Soutar gave the room 9 and the food 8 and found the potatoes better than the dessert. Two things keep it off should-visit. The kitchen that earned the review is not the kitchen cooking now, and nobody has written about the current one, so the craft evidence is three years old and belongs to a different chef. And there is nothing here you cannot get elsewhere: karaage, bao, gyoza and a fun cocktail list are a format Edinburgh has several versions of, and the guide entry says the food is good, not that it is singular. Go if you are eating on Broughton Street or if you want an early Michelin-listed dinner alone at the counter, which the guide specifically flags it for. Do not cross the city.