Mara.

Mara

The crew behind a nearby sports bar wrote this room a wine list that runs to orange and natural.

Why go

Mara opened in September 2024 in 2,400 square feet over two floors on the Shore, with arched windows onto the water and a big terrace outside.2 The name is Gaelic for the sea. Simon Keane is the director.3 Richard Bath reports the room as owned by the same crew who have made such a success of nearby Malone's sports bar, which is a sports-pub operation writing a list that spans red, white, rosé, orange and natural.1 The charcuterie boards are built on I.J. Mellis cuts, Great Glen venison bresaola, black garlic chorizo and Tuscan finocchiona, with Aleppo chilli hummus, muhammara and house pickles alongside. The kitchen also sends out mussels in a Malaysian laksa broth, and pork and Thai basil wontons in a pho broth with kaffir lime, which is further than most wine bars cook. The cocktail list takes its names from Scottish myth, from the Pictish Beast and the Kelpie to the Cailleach and, inevitably, the Unicorn. Beer is Scottish craft alongside the big draught names, and there is a proper Low and No range. Under-18s are welcome until eight and the dog can come.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the mezze board. The Aleppo chilli hummus and muhammara are the two things on it doing something a cheese board would not.2
• Order: The Faerie off the cocktail list, which is the one Richard Bath picked out of the eight named for Scottish myth.1
• Order: the haggis potato hash at brunch, with caramelised onions, a fried egg and peppercorn sauce. The brunch card is the shorter of the two.1
• Order: the wine flight. Three glasses, rotated every few weeks, and the fastest way through a list that spans red, white, rosé, orange and natural.5
• Order: the laksa mussels or the wontons in pho broth if the boards feel too easy. Those are the two plates on the opening list that a cook would want to taste.2
• Avoid: arriving after nine expecting to eat. The evening menu stops at nine even on the nights the bar runs to one in the morning.5

What locals & experts say

• Richard Bath, Scottish Field (September 2024): the only bylined review of the drink, and it is a qualified yes. A decent cocktail list (we liked The Faerie), long wine list (with glasses from £6.40 and bottles from £25) and a surprisingly extensive list of low-alcohol and no-alcohol beers makes this somewhere worth checking out. On the food he is briefer: the evening mezze and small plates are far more extensive than the brunch card, with an emphasis on comfort food from around the world.1
• The List, Eat & Drink 365: the terrace is what has earned it a mention, in a round-up of places to drink outdoors. Also try... The Cumberland Bar's leafy, sunken garden, Mara's huge terrace by the Shore or Herringbone Abbeyhill's raised timber deck.4
• Rosalind Erskine, The Scotsman (September 2024): her opening report is the fullest account of what the bar set out to do. She reports it and passes no judgment on it, and it records the rotating list spanning red, white, rosé, orange and natural and a wine club then still to launch.2

Good to know

• Hours: closed Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday 5pm to 11pm, Thursday noon to 11pm, Friday and Saturday 11am to 1am, Sunday 11am to 11pm. The day menu runs to 4pm and the evening menu from 5pm to 9pm.5
• Their website is down. The domain serves a hosting error rather than the site, checked on 4 August 2026 on two fetch routes. Everything above from the venue itself comes from a January 2026 archive capture, so treat hours and menus as needing a phone call.
• Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme has no rating for this premises. It was registered on 13 August 2024 and is still recorded as Awaiting Inspection as at 4 August 2026, which is close to two years without a first inspection. That is missing information and not a finding against the kitchen, and it is worth knowing which of the two it is.6
• Booking: tables can be booked and some are held back for walk-ins. There is a raised area that takes 40 seated or 60 standing with its own bar, which is the answer for a party.5
• Price: wine by the glass started at GBP 6.40 and bottles at GBP 25 when Richard Bath read the list in September 2024.1
• Getting there: 58 Shore, on the water in Leith. The address was the Innis & Gunn bar before this, which is what to look for if you knew the stretch.1 Do not confuse it with Mara's Picklery, a separate takeaway three miles south at 21c Strathearn Road in The Grange.

Jeff's take (his words)

• On the row itself: his master sheet files this under The Grange, which is the suburb of Mara's Picklery. The saved Maps pin, the FSA register and two newspaper reports all put this Mara at 58 Shore in Leith, and the suburb has been corrected on that.

Verdict

could-visit — An Irish sports-pub group took the old Innis and Gunn taproom on the Shore and wrote a five-style wine list over it, running to orange and natural, with flights that turn over every few weeks. That is the most interesting thing about this bar and it is the fact the entry still has not written down. The buying reads well on paper: I.J. Mellis charcuterie, Great Glen venison bresaola, black garlic chorizo and Tuscan finocchiona on the boards, with Aleppo chilli hummus and muhammara alongside, and the kitchen travels further than most bars of this format for mussels in a Malaysian laksa broth and pork and Thai basil wontons in a pho broth with kaffir lime. Set that against what is thin. Richard Bath's Scottish Field review of September 2024 is the only bylined verdict in two years of trading, it rates the drink and stops, and its one line on the food is about how long the list is. The plates on the record are still the opening release. The List picks out the terrace in a six-place outdoor-drinking round-up and leaves the bar off its own Edinburgh wine-bar and Leith Shore lists, where eight other rooms make one or the other. So the send is the water, the terrace and a glass on a Shore walk, with nothing in the craft evidence that moves anyone across town for it.