With so many great restaurants and bars to choose from in Edinburgh, we thought we’d find out what the top food critics have to say about the best places to eat and drink in the Capital. Critics including Jay Rayner, Marina O’Loughlin, Olly Smith and regular MasterChef critic Grace Dent are among those who know their palette and have sampled the best that Edinburgh has to offer.
1. The Palmerston - Jay Rayner
Food critic Jay Rayner was full of praise for this West End restaurant and bakery in a former bank building. He said: "The food is solid, comforting and beautifully executed and puts satisfaction a little way ahead of drop-dead gorgeousness." Photo: James Porteous
2. The Little Chartroom - Grace Dent
Guardian food critic Grace Dent raved about this "unique, delicious, risky and completely remarkable" Bonnington Road restaurant, adding "It has sailed straight into my heart." Photo: Contributed
3. The Bon Vivant - Jonny Ensall
Guardian food critic Jonny Ensall was full of praise for The Bon Vivant at Thistle Street, describing it as the "leading after-hours cocktail stop". Photo: Malcolm McCurrach
4. Noto - Marina Oloughline
Times food critic Marina Oloughline was full of praise for this Thistle Street restaurant. She said: "At Noto, the design is almost imperceptible: a black-painted narrow entrance, an unadorned bar; in the restaurant, dark furniture and a ghostly trail of dried twigs over plain white walls. It’s lovely in an almost monastic way, leaving any loucheness to what arrives on the plate. But it wasn’t the interior design that grabbed my attention, it was the baking." Photo: Contributed