Edinburgh Shops, Food and Pubs |
The Royal Mile, from the Castle to Holyrood Palace, is full of shops, but they are all tourist shops. They tend to be very repetitive as well, tartan shops, cashmere shops, Taste of Scotland shops, Harry Potter shops, stuffed toys shops... I'm not objecting to that. I'm all for Edinburgh extracting as much money from tourists as they can, and anyway, tourists like that kind of stuff. I must admit I bought from a couple of these shops myself! However, there are some more interesting shops.
30 Victoria Street, EH1 2JW
Cheesemongers. This is half way up the street West Bow / Victoria Street, which links Grassmarket and the Royal Mile. It is a tiny shop! But it is serious about selling cheese. In particular it has Scottish cheese of different types, and they tasted good! We found that some of the museeum cafes only did coffee and cakes. They were very nice cakes! But not really a lunch. So we would buy some cheese from this shop on the way back to the flat. Tourist Edinburgh has lots of cafes and restaurants and pubs, but it's not very good at selling food for meals. Sometimes the food shops are on the wrong level, or the wrong side of the Royal Mile, which involves a climb. So we found this shop useful.
5 Cowgatehead, EH1 1JY
Been around for 30 years. Fossils and minerals. This will depend if you're interested in such things. I am! Again, a tiny shop, but a serious one. Satisfying, as Scotland has interesting geology, and has made serious contributions to the subject. See Hutton Memorial Garden.
58 Candlemaker Row
This shop is near Greyfriars Kirk. Tartan is an obvious souvenir, and there are several tartan shops, but they did expensive finished goods, and I couldn't see myself actually wearing any of them. This shop is different. It supports the essential work of the Grassmarket Community Project, which runs a cafe for vulnerable or lonely people. But it also sold scraps of tartan - offsets - 5 for £2, which delighted me! One of them was even the tartan of the charity. It is (naturally) a tiny shop, and has slightly erratic opening hours, but I strongly approve of it!
122 High St, EH1 1SG
This used to be a church. It's a useful landmark in the Royal Mile, with St Giles another. Now the Tron contains a market with Scottish crafts on sale.
This is a good museum to visit (and free entry), but it also has a good shop, with cheap toys.
Sweet things are another interest of mine! There are lots of sweets on sale in tourist shops. Two specific Scottish sweets are Edinburgh rock and tablet. Edinburgh rock is nothing like normal seaside rock. It's very crumbly and dissolves in the mouth. It has pastel colours. They're supposed to be flavoured in various ways, but I couldn't quite work it out. But it's definitely local. Tablet is a bit like fudge, or rather old fashioned grainy fudge. You can also get fudge, of course, and chocolate, of various flavours. And Harry Potter stuff, but that's ubiquitous....
I must mention the (in-)famous deep fried Mars bar. Yes, I managed to get one (and eat it). It surprised me, actually. The assumption is that this is an enormously calorific and overwleming eating experience. But the batter wasn't sweet. In fact, it was slightly doughy, making the whole thing seem less sweet than a cold Mars bar. The bar itself melts. It was OK, but not really wonderful. And after a bit, your body tells you that you have actually had something enormously calorific. Still, I was pleased to have experienced it. I got it on the Royal Mile, in Canongate, I think, and it was advertised in the window.
We don't tend to go to cafes and restaurants. Normally we have sandwiches at museum cafes. The big Edinburgh museums had cafes (check on their websites to see if they do) but these seem to be coffee and cakes. The Scottish Parliament did smoked salmon bagels, but they didn't seem to be advertising the fact (I'd found it out from their website). Perhaps we were eating too early. They produced them when asked.
We had two pub meals. One was at the Tolbooth Tavern, 167 Canongate, EH8 8BN - which had a Scottish based menu. They allowed us to have a start and pudding only, which made a good meal for us. I had Cullen Skink (traditional smoked haddock soup, with potato, onion & cream - very nice indeed) and Cranachan (Scottish raspberries, whisky, cream & oats). My husband had haggis, coated in panko breadcrumbs, creamy mash & whisky cream sauce, and a warm brownie, which I don't think is particularly Scottish... But it was all good. Tourist prices, of course, but since we didn't have a main, OK on price. And you can have beer with it if you want.
The other pub meal was the Cafe Royal, 19 W Register St, EH2 2AA - in New Town, and near the National Portrait Gallery. This did sirloin steak sandwiches. Take a large bagette sliced lengthwise. Fill with slices of sirloin, lettuce, tomato, enormous battered onion rings. Now try to insert in the mouth... Knives and forks were provided. The pub's decor is fun. Elaborate Vicorian murals and stained glass. It calls itself an oyseter bar. Again, tourist prices, of course.
Our flat was in Cowgate Head, next to Grassmarket. Grassmarket has lots of pubs! A slight tendency to have live music, or a pub quiz. They get crowded, so we drank early evening, and for the most extreme pub (White Hart), before supper. Some are CAMRA recommended (White Hart, Black Bull, Beehive Inn, Last Drop). The Beehive garden has a view of the Castle. We went to a different pub every day for the week we were there. Some Edinburgh pubs stuck things onto their ceilings.
© Jo Edkins 2025