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• What are these?

• Average price 2 courses: £8
• House wine: £10.95 per bottle

• Hitlisted
• High point: Restaurant quality eating, café style
• Low point: Chilly through the back
• Food served: Mon-Sat 8.30am-5pm; Sun 9am-4.30pm
• Open since: 2004
• Also offers: Vegetarian options (at least 25% of menu), Childrens portions, Childrens high chairs, Take away

The List's Eating & Drinking Guide 2008 is now in the shops.

This review is from the 2007 edition.

There's no doubting the solidity of the circle experience. From the moment you walk in it surrounds you - walls hewn from stone, polished flags beneath your feet. It's a long, thin space with high ceilings and a tall window at the end that makes a tempting, if sometimes chilly, sitting area. It was once home to Edinburgh bakery Au Gourmand, and there's still a luxurious array of pastries to lure you in. Here, among the flapjacks and tray-bakes, are slabs of condensed chocolate masquerading as brownies, and an abundance of individual fruit tarts, baked to perfection, and filled with plums, apples, or apricots suspended in delicate jam. The quality and variety of these sweet offerings are a taster of what this place does so well - imaginative café dishes full of distinction. Lunch plates come with grilled tuna skewers, spinach and smoked bacon salad, asparagus and ricotta ravioli, or specials such as a fresh and chunky olive, feta and tomato quiche. Sandwiches accompanied by piping hot fries include a coarse home-roasted gammon, oozing brie and fruity yellow chutney. You can also stop by for upmarket breakfasts or afternoon tea. The bowl of olives with a gin and tonic served late afternoon says it all.