Smoked by AI

Smoked by AI · Edinburgh

The people.

The chefs, critics and writers and bar people, owners and locals whose picks shape the Edinburgh list, grouped by what they do for a living. Every name is a real person with a public track record, and each one appears against a room only where they endorsed that room themselves.

Chefs 7Critics and writers 26Bar people, owners and locals 4

Chefs.

Chefs cook for a living, and a chef who sends you to somebody else's room is putting their own name on it.

  • Tom KitchinChef6 picks

    Scottish produce cooked in a French technical idiom, across a MICHELIN-starred flagship and a set of casual Edinburgh rooms.

  • Stuart RalstonChef4 picks

    Edinburgh modern cooking across four price bands, from a MICHELIN-starred seafood room to a Bib-level pasta counter.

  • Mark DonaldChef3 picks

    Scottish fine dining and produce; Edinburgh from the outside, as a chef who trained in the city's top kitchen and now cooks elsewhere.

  • Roberta Hall-McCarronChef3 picks

    Edinburgh modern European cooking, Leith in particular, and the everyday end of the city she actually eats at on her days off.

  • Scott CampbellChef1 pick

    Edinburgh pub and restaurant kitchens.

  • Stuart SmithChef1 pick

    Seafood cooked over fire, and the Edinburgh rooms he eats in on his own time.

  • Jun AuChefno picks on this list yet

    Edinburgh's everyday, off-the-beaten-track rooms: Chinese, Greek, Turkish, Italian, wine bars, coffee shops, bakeries.

Critics and writers.

Critics ate the meal, wrote it up under their own name, and the review is linked so you can read it yourself.

  • Imran Rahman-JonesCritic9 picks

    Edinburgh pubs. Beer, cask, and what a room is actually like to drink in.

  • Keith DavidsonCritic7 picks

    Edinburgh eating and drinking at street level, the pubs and the cheap end in particular, plus Scottish restaurants more widely.

  • Richard BathCritic5 picks

    Edinburgh restaurants. Scottish journalist and author, long-serving editor of Scotland on Sunday and a bylined restaurant reviewer for The Scotsman, where his reviews carry a numeric mark out of 10 and a printed bill breakdown.

  • Natasha CorfieldCritic4 picks

    Scottish bars and cocktail programmes. Her standfirst on CLASS names the beat outright.

  • Alex SimsCritic2 picks

    Edinburgh restaurants, for Time Out.

  • Andy GregoryJournalist2 picks

    Edinburgh pubs and live music, for The Scotsman's food and drink desk.

  • Catriona ThomsonCritic2 picks

    Edinburgh and Borders restaurants and chefs, for The Scotsman's food and drink desk. Reviews rooms and also writes the paper's In the Kitchen chef interviews, which is why her byline turns up on both a verdict and a recipe.

  • Charlie EllisJournalist2 picks

    Edinburgh specialty coffee, reported as a sector rather than a shop at a time: openings, closures, lease economics, roasting, and how the city's cafe geography tracks where people actually live and work.

  • Roderick HollyJournalist2 picks

    Edinburgh food and drink businesses, reported from the trade side: anniversaries, openings, expansions, price news.

  • Sharon WilsonCritic2 picks

    Scottish restaurant reviews, weighted to Edinburgh and Leith.

  • Alison GrayCritic1 pick

    Edinburgh restaurants, for The Scotsman's food and drink desk, with a standing interest in where the ingredients on the plate actually came from.

  • Anne PiaCritic1 pick

    Scottish and Italian-Scottish food writing; Edinburgh cafes and delis.

  • Blythe RobertsonCritic1 pick

    Scottish bars, for CLASS, the UK bar-trade magazine. The masthead introduces him in its own standfirst: "Our Scotland reviewer Blythe Robertson drops in on The Port of Leith Distillery for his latest review."

  • Claire SawersCritic1 pick

    Edinburgh restaurants and bars for Time Out Edinburgh, written with a local byline.

  • Hannah BrownCritic1 pick

    Scottish hotel stays for Scotland on Sunday's travel desk, read as a guest rather than as a restaurant critic.

  • James PorteousCritic1 pick

    Scottish restaurants for the Good Food Guide, and specifically the regional Chinese cooking clustering in Edinburgh's Newington.

  • Kirsty WilkinsCritic1 pick

    Edinburgh restaurants, weighted to the neighborhoods the city desks reach late: Slateford, Shandon, Tollcross.

  • Lizzy BuchanCritic1 pick

    Edinburgh restaurants, for The Scotsman titles. Her main beat is news; the paper's own bio describes her as writing "food and travel pieces for The Scotsman titles, when not working as the paper's Health Correspondent."

  • Mika MoravaCritic1 pick

    Edinburgh cafes, ice cream and small independents, written for The Skinny's Edinburgh listings desk.

  • Murray ChalmersCritic1 pick

    Edinburgh restaurants, written as a weekly Friday column.

  • Neil JohnstoneJournalist1 pick

    Edinburgh city-centre reporting for the local daily, including first-person visits to the food and drink businesses the paper covers.

  • Vivian MaedaCritic1 pick

    Edinburgh restaurants for Bite Magazine, with a strong line on fermenting and preserving.

  • Donald ReidJournalistno picks on this list yet

    Edinburgh and Glasgow eating and drinking, at the everyday end.

  • Gary FlockhartJournalistno picks on this list yet

    Edinburgh food, drink and entertainment news for the Edinburgh Evening News, National World's Edinburgh daily. Openings, closures, chef news and award results across the city.

  • Rachel FergussonJournalistno picks on this list yet

    Edinburgh city news with a licensed-trade beat. Closures, licensing decisions, changes of hands.

  • Stephen RaffertyJournalistno picks on this list yet

    Edinburgh business and trade news for The Edinburgh Reporter, including food and drink openings. A former crime correspondent at The Scotsman and staff reporter at the Daily Record and Edinburgh Evening News, since freelance across the Scottish and UK nationals.

Bar people, owners and locals.

Bartenders, owners and locals know the things a review misses, like where the trade actually drinks.

  • Michele MariottiBartender3 picks

    Edinburgh and Scottish hotel bars.

  • Mike AikmanBartender1 pick

    Edinburgh cocktail bars, including which rooms you will struggle to get into.

  • Mike McGintyBartender1 pick

    Scotch whisky brand ambassadorship and Edinburgh cocktail bars.

  • Sian BuchanBartender1 pick

    Edinburgh cocktail bars, written from behind the stick. Her CLASS guide walks the city bar by bar with a drink named at each one.

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