The Best Places in Greenside & around

The clock tower above Waverley Station has run three minutes fast for over a century, so arriving guests don't miss their trains. This Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key hotel is the classic Edinburgh stay: kilted doormen, soaring ceilings, a dome-topped Palm Court, and rooms whose gas fireplaces and views of the castle make leaving feel like a poor decision. Bar Scotch holds the city's largest Scotch whisky collection, if you need a reason to stay in.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

Champagne trolley upstairs, ageing fridges stocked with charcuterie and top-end seafood, then down to grey velvet and white linen for the tasting menu, which is Stuart Ralston's idea of unapologetic fine dining and he means it. The 28-seat room holds a Michelin star and a spot on the National Restaurant Awards list, and the kitchen leans heavily into sustainably caught fish and shellfish, letting the produce do most of the arguing.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. National Restaurant Awards 2026 · #33 · The National Restaurant Awards

The bronze ribbon-wrapped egg of a building rising above St. James Quarter is hard to mistake for anything else. W Edinburgh is a luxury hotel that leans hard into spectacle, with mirrored ceilings, sculptural lighting, and wraparound terraces facing the skyline. A tartan tapestry and wood paneling nod to the city it landed in, while SUSHISAMBA handles the noise and the rooftop handles the views. Most of the 244 rooms are in the Ribbon Building, though a Georgian townhouse annexe is there for guests who want their drama slightly quieter.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A former bank vault now houses the spa, which tells you everything about how Gleneagles does things in Edinburgh. This luxury hotel and members' club on St Andrew Square runs Victorian grandeur through a very modern sensibility, with the rooftop bar at Lamplighters offering views over the square's statues below. Overnight guests get most of the perks of membership. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A Gothic church facade from the mid-1800s giving way to floor-to-ceiling glass and 77 airy rooms is a pretty good argument for adaptive reuse. This boutique hotel sits just off the top of Leith Walk, and the rooftop garden overlooking the city earns its reputation as the main reason to book. A whisky lounge and serious room service keep you from needing to go anywhere you don't actually want to be.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

A rubber duck in every bathroom is the Apex group's signature move, and it lands somewhere between charming and inexplicably correct. This hotel near Waverley station sits in a grand Georgian building whose stately facade gives no warning of the bright, clean-lined interior behind it. Rooms are comfortable and modern without tipping into parody, and the suites shade into proper luxury without the eye-watering rates that word usually implies.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Four rooms inside a Georgian townhouse on Royal Terrace, which tells you most of what you need to know about the scale and the seriousness. LYLA is the kind of boutique hotel where the minibar has clearly been thought about, the freestanding bathtubs feel like a genuine priority, and breakfast runs well past the usual luxury-hotel gestures. The rooms are moody and richly decorated, a counterpoint to the spare dining room one floor below.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A boutique hotel wedged between the ancient stone facades of the Old Town and the Georgian grid of the New Town, which means you're equidistant from a whisky bar and a gallery no matter which way you walk. The interior goes clean and minimal, from the smaller rooms up to a generous suite. The rooftop lounge earns its keep with views that remind you exactly where you are, which is, by any measure, the right part of Edinburgh.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Apartment-style rooms with full kitchens sit directly across from St. Giles' Cathedral on the Royal Mile, which is a pretty hard address to argue with. Old Town Chambers is a boutique hotel where the stonework and period details in the common areas nod to centuries of Edinburgh history, while the rooms themselves stay light and contemporary. On nights when cooking feels like a bad idea, Luckenbooths Restaurant and Bar handles breakfast through dinner and cocktails.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The Scotsman's party trick is a wall hatch that lets room service, laundry, and polished shoes pass through without you ever opening the door, a detail that sounds like a prison feature and functions like a luxury one. The hotel occupies the red sandstone former offices of its namesake newspaper, a short walk from Waverley Station and the Royal Mile, and hides an Art Deco cinema somewhere inside. The rooms themselves run from retro-themed to sleekly modern.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Neon-lit and loud in the best way, this Asian-inspired sharing plates bistro on Broughton Street pulls you in off the street and dares you not to over-order. Cocktails flow, the counter fills fast, and the menu skips between fried chicken karaage and apple pie gyozas with cheerful disregard for restraint. The Michelin Guide has it on their list, which surprises no one who's been. Come hungry and bring someone willing to split everything.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Exposed stonework and soft lighting set the mood in this wine bar and restaurant housed in a converted old inn near the Palace of Holyroodhouse, from the team behind Timberyard. The wine list leans into lesser-known regions, and the sharing plates are built to match something interesting in the glass. A stool at the ground-floor bar counter is the right call if you can get one.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A Parisian wine bar transplanted to Broughton Street, with bistro cooking that pairs French classics and Scottish produce with the occasional Mediterranean detour. The set lunch includes wine, which is either very civilised or a very good reason to cancel your afternoon. Downstairs sits Vivien, a speakeasy-style cocktail bar, in case one concept wasn't enough. Stuart Ralston runs the room, and the room is cosy without trying too hard about it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A Victorian pump house tucked down one of Edinburgh's famously steep closes off the Royal Mile, Devil's Advocate is a cocktail bar with a back bar stacked with over 200 Scotch and world whiskies that stops most people in their tracks on the way in. The space runs across several levels, all sleek and modern in a way that shouldn't work inside a Victorian pump house but does. The cocktail list pulls equal weight with the whisky wall.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

The dough sits for up to 60 hours before it sees the oven, which tells you most of what you need to know about Razzo. It's a small Neapolitan pizza restaurant near Leith, serious about its flour, its fresh yeast, its imported tomatoes and anchovies, and not much else. The room is simple, every table in plain view, Italian music in the background. Book ahead on weekends, and consider bringing a bottle.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza Europe Excellent Pizzerias

A Neapolitan pizza shop on the fourth floor of a shopping centre, which sounds like a setup for disappointment but isn't. The dough ferments for 24 hours and comes out of a 500-degree oven with proper char and plenty of tomato. Classics share the menu with weekend specials that lean into curious combinations. Spritz cocktails, a short wine list, and a relaxed room that fills with tourists and locals who didn't plan too hard.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza Europe Excellent Pizzerias

Fairy lights and a narrow passage off the Royal Mile lead you downstairs into three rooms that feel nothing like the street above: a proper bar, banquette seating, and a back room with an open fireplace and bookshelves that leans hard into gentleman's club territory. The Royal Mile earns its tourist reputation, but this basement cocktail bar is the exception serious drinkers make before moving on to lecture everyone else about avoiding the Royal Mile.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

The cocktail bar on the fourth floor of Harvey Nichols earns its keep through the window: Edinburgh Castle in one direction, the Firth of Forth in the other, and a G&T arriving just in time to soften the credit card damage from the floors below. The room itself leans burgundy leather and teak, somewhere between airport lounge and a 1970s sitting room that never quite updated. Comfortable, unpretentious, and better on a grey afternoon than it has any right to be.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The Basement is exactly what it says, an underground dive bar on Broughton Street that trades on the fact that Edinburgh sunshine is, statistically, more of a rumor than a given. Their own website takes a cheerful shot at the wicker-furniture crowd, and the regulars seem to agree, keeping the place full even on the rare days when it isn't needed. Dark, atmospheric, and aggressively unpretentious.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The oval island bar counter sits at the center of a room that looks exactly as a Victorian baroque bar should, polished walnut screen, bevelled mirrors, and all. The Circle Bar has been around forever, and a preservation order means no one can touch it, which is the right call. Order something classic and take your time with the carved details. This is a proper pub-heritage drinking experience, not a theme park version of one.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The ornate plasterwork here has been picked out in gold and white against black walls and ceiling, turning an already grand Victorian room into something that feels like a Gothic ballroom that never quite went home. This cocktail bar sits inside the same building as the Cafe Royal, though it keeps its own moody, theatrical atmosphere. Five rooms and three bars total, with live music and cabaret filling the back spaces when the evening calls for it.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A manga mural covers an entire wall of this Broughton Street bar, which somehow feels bright and airy even when you wander in after midnight. Light decor, doors propped open to the street, and cheerful staff all contribute to the mood, though probably in unknowable proportions. The pink and blue button-upholstered toilet doors have reportedly stumped at least one visitor, which tells you something about the clientele.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide