Old Pal Bar and Kitchen.

Old Pal Bar and Kitchen

Named for a cocktail, and it has taken the city's Best Restaurant Bar title in both years it has been open.

Why go

Ben Greig spent fourteen years inside the Bon Vivant group before taking this lease at the end of July 2024, and it is the first room that is his.2 The name is the drink: rye, dry vermouth and Campari, the equal-parts classic, and he liked the double meaning of it over a door. DRAM billed the room at the opening as a contemporary neighbourhood cocktail bar, and Greig put a short kitchen of classics and small plates beside the drinks.2 The bar runs over two floors on West Maitland Street, a minute from Haymarket, with the upper floor refurbished at the takeover. The Edinburgh Bar Awards gave it Best Restaurant Bar in 2024 at the programme's first edition, and again in 2025.5 Two of the team have gone further on their own account. Freya Kemp took Rising Star at the same 2025 ceremony, and Kielan Davidson made the Diageo World Class GB Top 50 for 2026.7 The doors stay open to midnight six nights a week, which is later than most of the West End manages.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the house Old Pal. Natasha Corfield, reviewing for the bar trade: I opted first for the namesake cocktail, which, with a glug of peach wine, was delicious.1
• Order: the Silver Bullet Fizz, which she rated also superb and sweet, bubbly and moreish.1
• Avoid: the Mango Paloma. Her line on it is blunt: the Mango Paloma was unbalanced and overdiluted.1
• Avoid: expecting the kitchen to be the reason you came. No critic has written about the food here since the bar opened in July 2024, and the one scored review states it covers the drinks and the service only.1

What locals & experts say

• Natasha Corfield, CLASS (October 2024), 7 out of 10: the only scored review of this bar, and she splits it. Two drinks land, one does not, and the room gets a caveat of its own: service was warm, though pretty slow.1
• Edinburgh Bar Awards 2024 and 2025: Best Restaurant Bar, twice, beating Hawksmoor into the highly commended slot the first year and Little Capo the second. Worth knowing how the votes are counted here. SLTN's report on the 2024 edition calls these the peer-nominated awards and prints no electorate split.3 The 50/50 public and trade split is documented for the 2025 edition, where results were decided by a 50/50 public and trade vote.4 Either way it measures standing in the city and it is not a critic's verdict.
• Edinburgh Bar Awards 2025, the categories it did not win: Old Pal was on the longlist for Best Bar and Best Bar Team and progressed in neither. Panda & Sons took both. That longlist ran to more than 150 names across 11 categories before any cut, so being on it is a nomination and nothing more.4
• Scottish Bar & Pub Awards 2025: Jake Harris, behind this bar, was one of three national finalists for Mixologist of the Year. Toby Peters of The Cocktail Geeks won it.6
• Ben Greig, to DRAM at the opening (August 2024): on what he was aiming at. There are lots of high-end restaurants around us, so I wanted to position the bar a little bit under that. Everything is of a high standard, but in a relaxed and comfortable environment. On the house drink: he added a twist with some peach wine going into it. That's been very popular with the locals.2

Good to know

• Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme rates this premises Improvement Required, the failing grade in the Scottish scheme, from a City of Edinburgh inspection on 20 May 2026. No re-inspection was pending as at 4 August 2026, so that is the rating in force and it is about eleven weeks old. Current information, and it sits in the same breath as the recommendation. The bar carries a kitchen, so it is the food side this reads on.9
• Hours: noon to midnight Tuesday to Saturday, 4pm to midnight on Monday, and noon to 11pm on Sunday. A genuine late bar six nights a week.8
• Booking: tables can be booked through their own site, and walk-ins work outside the peak.8
• Price: Greig set out to sit a little bit under the high-end restaurants on this stretch, in his own words at the opening. No drinks list survives either fetch route, so that positioning is the only price signal on record.2
• Getting there: 28 West Maitland Street, on the Haymarket approach to the West End, a couple of minutes from Haymarket station and the tram.

Verdict

could-visit — Two Best Restaurant Bar titles in the two years it has been open is real standing in this city. Half that electorate is a public vote, documented for the 2025 edition, so it measures affection in the trade and the town and stops short of a verdict on the drinks. The one critic who has been through the door scored it 7 out of 10, called the house Old Pal delicious and the Silver Bullet Fizz superb, and printed that the Mango Paloma was 'unbalanced and overdiluted' with service 'warm, though pretty slow'. The bartending is the strongest current signal: Jake Harris was one of three national finalists for Schweppes Mixologist of the Year in 2025, and Kielan Davidson made the Diageo World Class GB Top 50 for 2026. Behind that, the record shows neither depth nor movement. No menu text survives either fetch route, no source describes how the list is bought or how often it turns over, and one peach wine twist on a classic is the whole documented house style. Ben Greig came out of fourteen years at Bon Vivant to take his first lease here and set the kitchen at classics and small plates pitched under the restaurants around him, which is a clear idea and one nobody has yet eaten and written about. The Food Hygiene Information Scheme rates the premises Improvement Required from a 20 May 2026 inspection, eleven weeks old and current, and it reads on the food side of a room whose name carries the word Kitchen. A well-regarded bar a minute from Haymarket, with one middling published verdict on the glass and none at all on the plate, is somewhere to go when you are passing.