The Pitt Market
Pizza Geeks and Choola both started as vans in this yard, and it is run as a not-for-profit community company.
Why go
Hal Prescott and Scott Kirkham started the market on Pitt Street in Leith in 2015, and it closed in October 2022 when the site went to housing.4 It came back on 6 December 2024 at Granton, on the waterfront, in a 15,000 sq ft space built for GBP 500,000 with money from Firstport, Foundation Scotland and a crowdfunder.2 Two thousand people came in the first weekend. Six traders are resident now and the rest rotate. The one a cook should walk to is Fire Bowl, which takes Scottish ingredients into Japanese and Korean formats and means it: yakitori skewers dipped in a tare cut with whisky, and a kimchi made from neeps.4 Choola is a Nepalese kitchen run by Ameer and Nicole, Lazeez does the Lebanese end and is fully halal, and the coffee comes off Williams and Johnston beans at Long Shot. Beer is Barney's and Newbarns, both brewed in the city. Entry is free from the Granton Promenade side, there are two saunas from Soul Water Sauna out the back, and a separate 50,000 sq ft warehouse next door houses seven other businesses.
Order this / avoid
- Order: Fire Bowl's yakitori. The whisky in the tare and the neep kimchi are real substitutions worked out for Scottish shelves, and the judges at the 2025 Scottish Street Food Awards gave the stall the People's Choice prize.5
- Order: the Buffalo Truck's buttermilk fried chicken burger, and ask what the week's special is. It holds its own Pass on the hygiene register, in its own name.10
- Order: momos at Choola, which is one of the kitchens this market grew.
- Avoid: building a trip around a specific van. The resident list has turned over since opening, and Social Bite's dessert pop-up, announced as exclusive at launch, is no longer on it.
What locals & experts say
- Peter Simpson, The Skinny (2022), on the original site: the one honest read anybody has published, and it is about the Leith premises rather than this one.
That appeal is built on an excellent range of food and drink, and on a homespun, grassroots charm. Is The Pitt the most polished place in the world? No. For a long time it was completely open-air with really basic facilities and not very much room to mill about.
He also identifies what everyone else copies:it's in big money developments trying to copy the vibe of The Pitt and generally missing the point but still having a nice time.
1 - Ailidh Forlan, Street Food Scotland, quoted by The Skinny: her book opens by calling this market the
gateway drug
of Scotland's street-food scene.1 - The Skinny's 2026 Edinburgh eating guide: the current one-line read on what it has become.
The original Edinburgh street food market, The Pitt has moved to the Granton waterfront with events, gigs and regular markets to go with a rolling selection of local food vendors.
7 - Scottish Street Food Awards 2025: the market hosted the heats on 22 June 2025, and read the panel before you weigh the result. Six judges sat on it: Sam Yorke, head chef at Michelin-starred Heron, Jo Laidlaw of The List, Gaby Soutar of The Scotsman, Richard Johnson of the British Street Food Awards, Callum Easter, and Navida Galbraith, who is The Pitt's own Head of Ops and Programme. Smoked Tamago took the championship, and Fire Bowl, resident here, took People's Choice on a public vote and placed joint third on chicken skewers the judges called
some of the best ever tasted
. The market published that result itself.5
Good to know
- Hygiene, and it needs reading carefully. There is no FSA record for The Pitt itself; the traders and the bar are registered separately. The bar operation, registered as Northshore Events Ltd, holds a rating of Improvement Required, which is the failing grade in the Scottish scheme, from a City of Edinburgh inspection on 22 May 2025, and no re-inspection was pending as at 4 August 2026. That company shares its registered office and both directors with the market's own operator, so the finding attaches to the market's bar. Fourteen months without a re-inspection is the part that should give you pause. The two food traders registered at the address, The Buffalo Truck and Tekerch, both hold a Pass.9
- Hours: Thursday to Sunday from 9am, with bars from 11.30am and the food market from 3.30pm on Thursday and noon Friday to Sunday. The venue's own street-food page says open every day and its FAQ says Thursday to Sunday; the FAQ is the one to trust.4
- Price and entry: free to walk in from the Granton Promenade. Ticketed events run in the separate 700-capacity space off the West Shore Road entrance. No trader publishes prices centrally, so no figure is stated here.
- Groups: walk in, or email the market to hold space for a party over eight. There is an indoor hall, a children's area and a co-working space, so it takes a mixed group better than a restaurant would.
- Getting there: 20 West Shore Road, on the Granton waterfront, about three miles north-west of the center. Buses 8, 14, 16, 24, 27, X29, 47 and 113 run out from the city center, the 16 and 200 come up from Leith, and the 38 comes across from Morningside and Gorgie. The tram to Newhaven connects to the 16 or the 200 for the last leg. Get off at Waterfront Avenue or Waterfront Broadway and walk ten minutes down Spiers Bruce Way. Parking on West Shore Road is unrestricted and there is bike parking at the Granton Promenade entrance.11 This is not the Leith address the market held until 2022, and old directions will send you to a building site.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Revamped street food location"
- On the word revamped: it undersells what happened. This is a different address in a different part of the city, three miles from the Leith yard he will have known, rebuilt at 15,000 sq ft and reopened in December 2024 under a not-for-profit community company.
Verdict
could-visit — A yard is worth what its traders are worth, and the evidence here is real and narrow. Fire Bowl is the reason a cook makes the trip: Scottish ingredients pushed into Japanese and Korean formats with intent, yakitori dipped in a tare cut with whisky and a kimchi built from neeps, and at the 2025 Scottish Street Food Awards it took People's Choice and placed joint third on skewers the judges called some of the best they had tasted. Weigh that panel honestly: Sam Yorke of Michelin-starred Heron, Gaby Soutar of The Scotsman and Richard Johnson of the British Street Food Awards sat on it, and so did the market's own Head of Ops, and the market published the result. Around it sit five more residents, a Nepalese kitchen this market grew, a fully halal Lebanese counter, beer from two city brewers and free entry from the promenade. The place matters most for what it built. Pizza Geeks and Choola both started as vans here, Ailidh Forlan's book opens by calling it the gateway drug of Scottish street food, and it now runs as a not-for-profit community company inside the Granton waterfront regeneration. Two things hold the rung where it is. No critic has published on the Granton premises in twenty months of trading, so the cooking rests on one trader's award and on menu copy, and the bar operation carries a failing hygiene rating that has stood since May 2025 with no re-inspection. Go when the waterfront is already your afternoon, take the group and the kids, and read the trader board before you build a meal around one van.