The Shore Bar and Restaurant

The bar room's interior has been virtually unchanged since 1884, and CAMRA gives it two stars, its top grade for a historic pub interior.3

Why go

The pub occupies the ground floor of an 1802 tenement on the Water of Leith, and CAMRA's branch record carries the Historic Environment Scotland listing at category B.3 The gantry runs on barley-twist columns under a canopy filled with wine bottles, and the branch surveyor's own note is that no lower shelves were lost to fridges, which is the detail that tells you how little has been touched. There is a curved timber partition at the door, three bays of fixed seating, a fireplace with a glazed red-brick interior and a floor-to-ceiling mirror on the back wall that fools people about the size of the room. The restaurant side was the counting house, and a rear door still has Private Parlour etched into the frosted glass. Fishers, the seafood group whose original room is immediately next door at 1 Shore, took this over and pointed the kitchen somewhere else. The List described what replaced it as a grown-up, French-slanted bar-bistro menu, which is what the 2026 list still reads like: nine mains, five of them carrying fish or shellfish, and a steak. CAMRA's branch record still describes the restaurant as specialising in seafood and game, and the current menu does not bear that out.3 1 There are two beer taps, one of them rotating, typically Pilot or Stewart.

Order this / avoid

Order: the Scottish haddock, GBP 19, in beer batter or panko. It is the cheapest fish on the list and the plate this room is built for; only the summer risotto, at GBP 18, comes in under it.4
Order: the king prawn, haddock and mussel stew, GBP 24.50, which comes with a toasted garlic baguette to put in it.4
Order: the set lunch on a weekday, GBP 21 for two courses and GBP 26 for three, served noon to four. That is the whole argument for eating here at lunchtime.4
Avoid: ordering big, and taste before you reach for the salt. The only critic to review this kitchen warned about both.
For the record, and no longer on the menu: the house steak and kidney pie that The List praised as a large, piping-hot steak and kidney pie made in-house as a pie rather than a dollop of stew with a straw hat, and the ham hash cakes. The 2026 list carries neither.1

What locals & experts say

The List, reviewing the room after the takeover, is the only published judgment on the cooking and it is a mixed one. On the kitchen: occasionally daunting portions and a heavy hand with the salt. On the crowd: it shouldn't be forgotten that the Shore is also a very pleasant place to drink, if clearly a middle-age comfort zone. On the room itself: one of Edinburgh's most appealing old interiors, the separate bar and restaurant areas both featuring extensive dark wood paneling, huge mirrors and worn brass fittings.1
The List's Eat & Drink 365 guide (2025) gives the current one-line read: well-seasoned stalwart The Shore Bar is the spot for a quieter pint and some snacks in a beautiful wood-panelled room. Both of these are the same masthead, so they are one voice between them.2
CAMRA's Edinburgh and South East Scotland branch, on what the mirror does: Popular, small bustling bar/restaurant on the Water of Leith with historical wood-panelled interior and excellent banquette seating... You may not realise you are looking at yourself rather than a larger bar! The same record carries the Two star grading, a pub interior of very special national historic interest, on an inventory of 116 pubs.3
No named critic has reviewed the current kitchen, checked 4 August 2026, and no award has ever gone to this business. The Two star grading is the building's.

Good to know

Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme rates this premises Improvement Required, which is the failing grade in the Scottish scheme, from a City of Edinburgh inspection on 22 June 2026. No re-inspection was pending as at 4 August 2026, so that is the rating in force and it is about six weeks old. Current information, and it belongs in the same breath as the recommendation.5
The neighbour's rating is its own. Fishers Bistro at 1 Shore, under the same operator, separately holds Improvement Required from an inspection in July 2025. Two premises, two records, and neither transfers to the other.5
Hours: the operator prints them on every Shore page: Mon-Sat 12pm - Late / Sunday 12:30pm - Late. The set lunch window inside that is noon to four, Monday to Friday.4
Booking: tables in the bar room are taken by phone only, on 0131 553 5080. The online system covers the restaurant side. Since the bar is the 1884 room, the phone is the number that matters.4
Live jazz in the bar on Sunday afternoons, one until four. It is an afternoon thing and not an evening one.4
Price: mains run GBP 18 to 33 with the haddock at 19, and the weekday set lunch is GBP 21 or 26. Prices read 4 August 2026.4
Sites: Fishers runs three rooms. Fishers Bistro is next door at 1 Shore in a seventeenth-century watchtower, Fishers In The City is on Thistle Street, and this page is the bar and bistro at 3-4 Shore. Four other businesses on the same short street are unrelated: The Ship on the Shore at 24-26, Barry Fish at 62, Mara at 58 and two delis.
Ownership: the Fishers takeover is documented and its date is not. The List states it plainly; no source read gives a year, and the group's standing notice is signed with two first names and no surnames.

Jeff's take (his words)

The case for it is a room worth sitting in, set against a kitchen nobody has reviewed under a byline and a hygiene rating that is six weeks old and failing.

Verdict

could-visit — The room carries this venue and the kitchen rides along behind it. CAMRA grades this interior Two star on a Scottish inventory of 116 pubs, the public bar has been virtually intact since 1884, and the gantry still runs on barley-twist columns under a canopy of wine bottles with no lower shelves cut out for fridges. Weighing craft first, which is what the ladder asks, there is little to weigh. The bar runs two beer taps, one of them rotating between Pilot and Stewart. Nine bistro mains run from GBP 18 to GBP 33, no source read names a chef, and no Edinburgh restaurant critic has ever assessed the cooking. The single published judgment on the food is unbylined, undated and archived from before 2022, and it lands on occasionally daunting portions and a heavy hand with the salt. The Food Hygiene Information Scheme rated the premises Improvement Required on 22 June 2026 with no re-inspection pending, which is current information about how this kitchen is run and it sits in the same breath as the recommendation. A nationally graded room with drink and food that are neither moving nor deep is a heritage stop, so this is a pint in the 1884 bar and a GBP 21 weekday set lunch. Anyone in Leith who wants the cooking to be the point should be sent along the waterfront.

The Shore Bar and Restaurant.