Roseleaf bar cafe.

Roseleaf bar cafe

The bar that serves cocktails out of teapots7 got its Netflix moment for a bowl of Cullen skink.9

Why go

Phil Rosenthal filmed the Scotland episode of the seventh series of Somebody Feed Phil here, sitting down to breakfast with the chef Tony Singh and Roseleaf's owner Jonny Kane. They ate the Cullen skink first, then a full Scottish breakfast.9 It went out on 1 March 20242 and the room had its busiest March anyone there could remember.3 The pub has been on Sandport Place since July 2007, in the old Black Swan premises at the Water of Leith end of the Shore. Two of the founding owners, Amanda Caygill and Lynn Kane, were Australians with fond memories of Melbourne's open, upbeat eating and drinking scene. Food has run from ten in the morning here since.5 They were brewing their own ginger beer by the time The List first wrote about them, and it is still the base of a cocktail on the current list. Richard Bath found a kitchen working the same way in 2014, with everything from the bread upwards made on the premises by chef Neil Connor1, and the Summer 2026 menu still opens on the same claim: We prepare all our food from scratch right here in oor wee kitchen.8 The menus are written in Leith vocabulary throughout, down to a slang glossary at the front of the drinks list. Graham Parsons runs it now, with his wife Kylie.4

Order this / avoid

• Order: the chunky Cullen skink, GBP 10.95 on the Summer 2026 card. Smoked haddock and potato, and the menu's own word for it is chunky, at a Leith pub price.8
• Order: a Pot-Tail, if there are two of you. Time Out set the rule and the catch in one line: cocktails served in chintzy teapots for two or more people. Solo drinkers have to make do with a tall, fluted glass.7 Read the listed price as a glass: the drinks card says that for a pot for two, it's double the price for double the fun!8
• Order: the Mad Hatter, GBP 9. They brew the ginger beer it is built on, and have since the early years.8
• Order: the bavette steak frites, GBP 21.95, with skin-on double-dipped chips and chimichurri. The menu itself specifies best served pink, so the kitchen has decided the doneness and will cook it that way.8
• Order: eggs benedict if you are here on a Sunday. Richard Bath's line on it in The Scotsman: This is where I occasionally come on a Sunday for the best eggs benedict in Edinburgh…1

What locals & experts say

• Richard Bath, The Scotsman (2014), wrote the only critical review this room has: The Roseleaf may be a bit self-consciously hippie chic, but it's all the more lovable for that. The staff are as attentive as they are efficient, the environment never fails to bring a smile to my face, the bill never induces a frown, and the food has a mix of honesty and ambition that makes you determined to enjoy the experience.1 He scored the room 7 out of 10, in an older Scotsman format that printed one number and no panel behind it.
• Bath on a single plate, which is the useful half of a review: This was a mix of the ridiculous and the sublime, with the Ritz-biscuit-sized and chewy – rather than crunchy – crouton providing the downside, while the melt-in-the-mouth pork cheek and a sweet Buckfast jus, which had been reduced so much it was halfway to tar, proving the upside.1 A Buckfast reduction is a Scottish kitchen joke taken seriously enough to cook down.
• The List's Eat & Drink 365 guide files it under the Leith Shore bars and reads the room in one line: Roseleaf is a cheery all-day spot with a tasty and pun-tastic bar food menu. It's relaxed and family-friendly but staff will happily brew you up a potent cocktail served in a teapot.6
• The drinks card names its own house pour, and in a bar known for novelty serves it is the plainest thing on the list: the Port O' Leith Table Whisky at GBP 6.25, a Leith blend the menu calls delicious, reliable, approachable & rich.8

Good to know

• Hours: ten in the morning to eleven at night Sunday to Thursday, to midnight on Friday and Saturday, seven days. The kitchen stops well before the bar, at 9pm most nights and 9.30pm at the weekend.8
• Booking: the venue's own line is that reservations are not needed but are always recommended. Bath was blunter, and found it almost impossible to simply turn up and have any reasonable expectation of getting a table.1
• Price: starters GBP 7.95 to GBP 11.95, mains GBP 16.95 to GBP 21.95, Pot-Tails GBP 9 to GBP 12 a glass, from the Summer 2026 menus read on 4 August 2026.
• Groups: the back dining room takes about a dozen. Above that, pick somewhere else.
• Children: family-friendly through the day, per The List.
• Getting there: Sandport Place is on the Water of Leith at the top of the Shore, a couple of minutes' walk from the Shore's restaurant row and about ten minutes from the Ocean Terminal end.
• Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 29 June 2026, FHRSID 662047. Five weeks old and clean.10

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: "On TV with Phil", in his own words.
• He is right, and one detail corrects the obvious guess. No source connects the teapot cocktails this bar is known for to the segment that was filmed, so the famous thing is not what got on camera.

Verdict

could-visit — Take the Netflix credit off the table first, because it is a media credit and it moves the rung by zero. Phil Rosenthal ate Cullen skink on camera here for the Scotland episode in March 2024 and the room had its busiest March in memory, which tells you about the audience and nothing about the cooking. What is left is a Leith bar trading all day since July 2007 that makes one thing itself: the ginger beer brewed in the building since the early years, still the base of the Mad Hatter at GBP 9. That is a genuine craft signal and it is one ingredient. The cocktails come out of a teapot into china cups sized for two, a serve format with charm and no depth behind it. The only critic who has ever judged this room is Richard Bath in November 2014, and he is honest in both directions on the same plate: melt-in-the-mouth pork cheek with a Buckfast jus reduced halfway to tar, alongside a chewy Ritz-biscuit-sized crouton. He also wrote that this is where he goes on a Sunday for the best eggs benedict in Edinburgh, which is the strongest food claim in the file and it is twelve years old. No chef is named anywhere in the record, there is no award, and no guide bands this kitchen. The Summer 2026 card shows the menu turns with the season, so somebody is paying attention, and nobody arm's-length has judged where it turned. Cullen skink at GBP 10.95 and mains topping out at GBP 21.95 is fair Leith money for a room open ten to midnight seven days with the kids welcome through the day. Go if you are already on the Shore, take the skink and the ginger beer drink, and build the rest of the night elsewhere.