Café Truva

The 2012 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £5.95 (+p&p).

This review is taken from the current (2012) edition.

You can now pop in for the same Café Truva Mediterranean menu at three branches across Edinburgh. Leith, Lady Lawson Street and Canongate are all serving Turkish plates, a wide range of cakes and your usual café panini list against a varyingly elaborate backdrop of wooden panelling, colourful crockery and beautifully ornate light fittings. The small, happily located Shore branch is the original, and has been serving excellent Turkish coffee for well over a decade now. The quality throughout the menu is variable, with more success to be found among the cakes – the honey-soaked, nut-laced baklava, kadaif and shamali are all made on site – than some of the main dishes, which tend towards the expensive for what you get. Borek (spinach and feta stuffed filo pastry) is heavy with cheese, and the meze plate highlights some weak ingredients which translate into thin flavours. Transparent tomatoes, vinegary dolmades and grainy olives are a giveaway of poor sourcing. The gluten-free chocolate almond tart is glorious, however, and good hot chocolate will satisfy young and old.