Cafés, Child friendly and "Edinburgh"
- Café Milk
Café Milk offers seasonal, delicious food at fantastic prices! - Angels With Bagpipes
Angels with Bagpipes articulates the natural union of Scottish and Italian sourcing and gastronomy - Urban Angel
Urban Angel use local, organic and fairly traded produce in a cool environment - Centotre
Centotre serves food made from locally sourced ingredients in a great location
The Treehouse
44 Leven Street,
Edinburgh,
EH3 9LJ
Its enviable location on the corner of Bruntsfield Links makes the Treehouse a perfect impromptu picnic provider on a summery day, although eating in is no bad choice either. The interior has a slightly offbeat, kooky charm about it – from the vintage…
Empires
24 St Mary's Street,
Edinburgh,
EH1 1SU
There’s a dark, exotic, Aladdin’s Cave feel to Empires – a one-off kind of place that has walls covered with Middle Eastern fabrics and tiles, multi-coloured globe lamps dangling from the ceiling, and an upstairs seating area full of scatter cushions…
Angels With Bagpipes
343 High Street,
Edinburgh,
EH1 1PW
Don’t let the High Street buskers put you off. Through the back in the restaurant you won’t hear them. Instead, the smart sophisticated décor and modern tableware sets off an approach to Scottish ingredients that acknowledges centuries of continental…
Blue Moon Café
1 Barony Street,
Edinburgh,
EH3 6PD
On a corner off Broughton Street this gay-friendly diner serves up simple hearty food at reasonable prices. Lunch is a particularly good deal with main courses all under £6. Daily specials include a couple of soups, which might be a velvety smooth leek…
Centotre
103 George Street,
Edinburgh,
EH2 3ES
Centotre manages to pull off a neat trick. Despite the austere, ex-bank interior, from those lost days when financial edifices were akin to cathedrals, it still manages to maintain a feeling of warmth and intimacy in the evenings or bright and breezy…
Spoon Café Bistro
6a Nicolson Street,
Edinburgh,
EH8 9DH
Home life getting you down? Move here. Seriously. It’s open from 10am till 10pm, serving everything from morning rolls through to a three-course dinner. There’s free wi-fi. People bring you drinks. The furniture is cool kitsch-retro-chic. If only the…
The Gateway Restaurant
John Hope Gateway Centre, Royal Botanic Garden, Arboretum Place,
Edinburgh,
EH3 5LR
Although lacking the panoramic views of its sister venue, the Terrace Café, the restaurant in the Botanics’ gleaming new John Hope Gateway enjoys a pleasant outlook over the Biodiversity Garden, especially from the lovely al fresco tables on its…
JoJo's Danish Bakery & Café
26 St Mary's Street,
Edinburgh,
EH1 1TA
This is the kind of operation which can give Edinburgh a cosmopolitan name. Fresh, well-crafted pastries from the hand of half-Dane Joanna Coleman (aka JoJo) are baked in the basement of this Old Town café and sold not just from the premises but also…
Kilimanjaro Coffee
104 Nicolson Street,
Edinburgh,
EH8 9EJ
Bang in the middle of studentville, Kilimanjaro has a laid-back vibe, conducive to whiling away an afternoon reading and nattering or making a start on that essay. The chunky tables, worn wooden chairs and leather sofas are comfy and inviting and the…
Metropole
33 Newington Road,
Edinburgh,
EH9 1QR
Taken over recently by the folks who make Canonmills’ Circle Café go round so nicely, the improvements at Metropole are clear. Always a pleasant, airy space, the mix and match floral crockery remains, as do the diner-style booths, though they’ve been…
Café at the Palace
Palace of Holyroodhouse,
Edinburgh,
EH8 8DX
Situated next door to Holyrood Palace, this café is the obvious place to grab a sandwich or hearty bowl of soup after visiting the Queen’s Gallery and Palace, or after an invigorating trek round Arthur’s Seat or tour of the Scottish Parliament. With…
Cucina LC
68 Haymarket Terrace,
Edinburgh,
EH12 5LQ
The initials LC come from the owner’s name (Lorena Crolla), but they could just as easily stand for ‘Lotta Choice’ considering the amount of items on the menu here. Including Asian, Italian and Scottish elements, there are almost 40 sandwich…
Earthy Market Café
33–41 Ratcliffe Terrace,
Edinburgh,
EH9 1SX
With reclaimed wood panelling and rustic hues, this converted warehouse could easily be the set for a new Channel 4 cookery show (you half-expect to see Jamie or Hugh pottering about). Thankfully though, like the food market upstairs, the style doesn’t…
Urban Angel
1 Forth Street,
Edinburgh,
EH1 3JX
Seasonal, local and organic are the buzz words for these bright, informal, modern bistros. A high proportion of the menu is made up of daily specials making the most of what produce is best that day. A nourishing parsnip soup is enlivened with mustard…
Project Coffee
196 Bruntsfield Place,
Edinburgh,
EH10 4DF
Bruntsfield doesn't suffer from a lack of sociable coffee venues, but that hasn't deterred relative newcomer Project Coffee. Like sister businesses Kilimanjaro, Press and Wellington Coffee, they use beans from small artisanal roasters to make their…
Circus
8 St Mary's Street,
Edinburgh,
EH1 1SU
The stone-walled courtyard in the back of this Old Town café/ restaurant is a mini sun-trap in the summer, and a good spot for enjoying some calm while the High Street might be getting unpleasantly hectic with crowds. Circus is run by the same folks who…
Edinburgh Larder
15 Blackfriars Street,
Edinburgh,
EH1 1NB
Tucked just off the Royal Mile, Eleanor Cunningham’s café features a menu that's a roll call of Scottish food heroes. From Creelers’ smoked salmon to Great Glen venison, Rannoch smoked chicken and Cunningham's mum’s jam and dad’s chutneys, everything…
Maxi's
33 Raeburn Place,
Edinburgh,
EH4 1HX
Enjoying an airy, double-fronted location on Stockbridge's bustling main thoroughfare, Maxi's is a popular pitstop for almost-all-day (until 3pm) breakfasts, filling sandwiches and hearty but healthy lunches. Vegetarians are well catered for with a…
Rocksalt Café Deli
46 Constitution Street,
Edinburgh,
EH6 6RS
In recent years owner Callum Morrison has established a strong local reputation for café Rocksalt and its sister deli, Relish, just round the corner. Although the departure of talented chef Craig Long has been felt, Morrison is keen to move forward and…
The Scottish Café
National Gallery of Scotland, The Mound,
Edinburgh,
EH2 2EL
Run by the acclaimed team from Centotre – Victor and Carina Contini – the Scottish Café and Restaurant has been a stylish addition to arts venues in Edinburgh since 2009. There is a Garden Café within the gallery reception, but the main operation is a…
Toast
146 Marchmont Road,
Edinburgh,
EH9 1AQ
Marchmont's residents have been withholding information from the rest of the city: they have jealously guarded the fact that Toast, tucked up at the top of Marchmont Road, is such a delight. It's understandable, given that queues for seats in the small…
Two Thin Laddies
103 High Riggs,
Edinburgh,
EH3 9RP
Pitch pine, exposed timber and white walls – the interior of Two Thin Laddies is reminiscent of an alpine ski resort, which is appropriate really, considering they serve the sort of food you’d want after a hard morning on the pistes. The décor might be…
Valvona & Crolla Vincaffè
11 Multrees Walk,
Edinburgh,
EH1 3DQ
Valvona & Crolla’s Vincaffe is only a short distance but several years away from the densely packed cornucopia of the family-run business’s original branch on Elm Row. With a bright, contemporary décor, evenly spaced, white dressed tables and a bank…
Café Marina
61 Cockburn Street,
Edinburgh,
EH1 1BS
Forget Ikea: this is where you’ll find the best meatballs in town. They're more of a hearty sausage shape than a ball here: get them cut up in pasta or squeezed into a ciabatta for a chin-dripping panini – but whatever you do, get them. With just a…
Foodies at Holyrood
67 Holyrood Road,
Edinburgh,
EH8 8AU
At first glance, this airy, light-filled café seems a touch out of the way. But factor in the tourist draws of Dynamic Earth and Holyrood Palace, as well as politicians popping over the road for their daily bread, and you’ll understand why it’s…
