Edinburgh's Best Restaurants 2024: Where Chefs Eat

We're at the best place to eat and drink in Edinburgh. We've interviewed a bunch of leading chefs to ask them exactly that. And now we're going to go where they told us to. And to round off our 48 hours here, we're going to go to Edinburgh's best restaurant. Yes! Does it live up to their hype? Some chefs have said Noto is the best restaurant in Edinburgh. It's not Michelin star. It's not super expensive. In fact, it's very good value. It's a Japanese-American mash-up. Fancy lunch, Will? I am actually very hungry, bro. Run by a chef called Stuart Ralston, who spent a long time in New York. What are you going to be making for us? So we'll definitely have crab butter. So it's just like a really warm white butter sauce with North Sea crab, some kombu. Just dip it in sourdough. Trout tamaki, beef tartare. Portions are great sizes. Get a load, share them. I think the value is brilliant. What's coming up next? We've got some bow coming up. These ones are duck with summer truffle. Spring onions and crispy onions as well. It's like a little pasty breast. Buttermilk fried chicken. Japanese. With coffee in the batter. It is all absolutely fantastic, though. All the flavours are superb. Chocolate miso with malted ice cream. This is hibiscus meringue with a rhubarb sorbet. That is so great. Yeah, fantastic. Thank you, bro. Loved it. Right, let's have a coffee. We're in Toll Cross for this little place. Beatnik. Best cop shop in Edinburgh. Hands down. My pants. Of course, you're going shaggy. Beatnik is Sam and Jemma's. And the reason why the branding and graphic is all very cool, Jemma also has a little graphic design company. I was just cutifying it, but actually, it might be massive. Can I have, like, a cortado with oatmeal? Beatnik's designed to be a coffee-obsessed social space. It's a laptop-free zone, and they take that really seriously. Delish? Delish. I was today years old when I found out that pour-overs have recipes. Over there, little whiteboards, and they've got different grammages with different temperatures. Grammages? Hello, big boy. Fancy seeing you here. It's hard not to like it. It's the sort of thing that really gets me going. Let's go, buddy! Next up, a very little and historic pub bar called Kay's Bar. Best bar or pub. Kay's Bar. Kay's, definitely. Been here for well over 200 years. Barrels in the wall. It's just seeped in history. It's just very relaxed in there. It's definitely a place where you want to just have a couple of pints of chai. Take it easy. Thank you. Bye, guys. Benji, honestly, let's go so far behind. Spry, it's a natural wine bar run by husband and wife team, Matt and Regina. Think what you want about natural wine. Will and I, we're really into it, aren't we, Will? We are. I just don't really like drinking wine. Really? You can come here, buy a bottle of wine, take it away, or to drink in £10 corkage. What are you drinking there, bro? What are you doing there, bro? What are you drinking there, bro? Matt set me off with a Catalonian orange wine. Lovely, jubbly. Jess's nips are getting dry shampoo. What's that one? We're just having a few little snacks, aren't we? Little snacky small plates. This is their very fresh cheese. They make it here every morning. Get some olive oil from one of their wine suppliers. Look at that olive oil, it's good. It's the brown crab pate, Will. Just good Scottish crab. Seed monkfish with a mole. Fifty-odd ingredients in this one little sauce. The flavours are great. And it's technical. The great wine I expected, but the great food. Didn't expect that. Off we go. This is Roberta. Hi. From Little Chart Room. It's relaxed, fine dining. Good value. Good hospitality. Cheers, lads. Cheers, dude. And according to many chefs, the best restaurant in London. I just feel like that is so ingrained in my brain. Best restaurant in London. What are you going to make for us today? Super fresh cured halibut with like a tomato dashi, a courgette tart. So in the base you get a roast garlic custard, then salted and rolled courgette pieces, wasabi courgette marmalade. Good stuff. This is a little milk bun. And it's brushed with a chicken sauce topped with crispy chicken skin. Oh, man. I'm excited. So moving on to mains, we've got a monkfish dish with barricade maitakes, butter sauce with brown shrimp, vanilla flour. That just looks tasty. Really tasty. Gorgeous. Duck dish, where we've taken whole ducks, broken them down, you get the breast just gently cooked. Taken the leg meat and minced it all down and turned it into a little sausage. Oh, wow. I am absolutely a chocolate fiend, so there's generally always a chocolate dish on the menu. Oh, yeah. So we've got a chocolate mousse with a yuzu caramel and a banana ice cream. Delicious. That's really good. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hit me, bro. I can't remember why we're here. Um, seagulls. Dinner number two of the evening. The Heron. Right here on the shore of Leith, a young chef, 24 years old, called Sam, opened this place on a budget. One year later, we've already got awards for Michelin star. And cheers, everyone, to that. A little Marg, a little Negroni. The only dish that's been on the menu since they opened three years ago is brown crab butter. Oh, yeah. Did it get in your mouth? Hm? Did you eat a bit? Yeah. This is veal sweetbread sat on a celeriac puree, a chicken sauce with candied walnuts. That's just the right amount of richness. This is a pan-fried pork dish that's been brined, and we've got a pork and sherry vinaigrette. Third monkfish dish of the day, boys. WT fudge. With little disks of butternut squash, mussels, chipotle, juniper. Again, balanced the richness really well. End of day one, boys. We did well there. Kicked the arse off it. Now I think it's time for a big old sleep and a big old bed. Good morning, dude. What do you need before a full day of eating? A little pastry at the hotel, a breakfast. During our time at Edinburgh, we're staying at the historic and extremely special Balmoral Hotel. That one on the corner, that is my room. Hey, me! In London, we have Big Ben. In Edinburgh, they have the clock tower on the Balmoral, and it's set a few minutes fast so that nobody would miss their train. It's been since 1902. Queen Elizabeth II stayed here, Will. Each window has a beautiful little picture-perfect frame of a lovely view of Edinburgh. Crams, mate. Bloody hell. What's going on? If you're going to be a five-star hotel, you've got to do stuff like this. Let me tell you what, it goes really well with my toothpaste. Cameron Ewan and Matt from Spry Wines have been absolutely raving about Singapore Coffeehouse. So, Dylan wants to open a little space. He's got eight seats in here. First come, first serve. Good food, and that's Singapore coffee. Sweetness. That is good, though. Murtabak that Dylan's preparing here. Typical Singaporean. You can have it with vegetables, lamb, chicken. As we're in Edinburgh with Dylan, he feels it with haggis. Singapore, Scotland collide. Oh, that's so good. Goodness me. Right, bro, talk to me. What else have we got here? Right here, this is a little curry puff. This is the koya toast. Big chunk of butter, a sweet jam dipped in a slow-cooked egg. Nice. I call the eggs like a scrambled egg with a roti, Hong Kong toast. All the good stuff. Beautiful flavours. I think this is my favourite with the haggis. I really love that. Did not expect that in Edinburgh, but he's doing it with so much energy and soul and love. Your hair's looking a bit funny, mate. At Topshaw, we filmed at a lot of bakeries all over the world. Lannan feels like a special one. Started about eight, nine months ago by Darcy. She spent seven months designing it herself. The colours and the wood tones. Tell me about Lannan. What is it? So, we're a bakery focusing on laminated pastries. It's a sour cherry and creme fraiche custard slice. Well done, mate. That was clean. That was all right, wasn't it? Oh, crikey. Ever since I was tiny, always wanted to be a baker. The interiors are exactly the same as I'd imagined when I was tiny. So, it's quite special. It comes back to this little mud pie bakery I had in my garden when I was younger. So, it's very thoughtful and a long time coming. That's the best. Absolutely love it. That is a world-class bakery. Now we're going to meet a big man in a skirt to have some whiskey. Hey, Cameron. Hey, how are we doing? I've picked out three of my absolute favourite whiskeys for you to try. We're going to start with Grand Cru. This is a beautiful 23-year-old whiskey from them. Not much of that harsh bite to it. Yeah. This next whiskey is a beautiful 15-year-old that's fully matured and ex-American on task. Loads of fresh apple. So, that's a 26-year-old McAllen. You'll notice that this one is far stronger. You'll get a bit of cinnamon, a bit of nutmeg. Oh, damn, that's good. This is basically the order of my enjoyment and I think that correlates with the value. Yeah, it would appear you've got expensive taste. Woo! Yeah! When asking the hospitality scene of Edinburgh, where's the best cocktail bar? Best cocktail spot? Heypaloo. Heypaloo gets the recommendation. Will you infer a flight of Negronis you want? I am brewing. White strawberry Negroni, classic Negroni, rum coffee Negroni. Oh, that's a smooth one, isn't it? Why is it called a paper plane, Jess? You have your cocktail, you get given a sheet of paper from which you need to make a paper plane. You throw it anywhere in the bar, from the steps, and if you hit a bottle, you get a shot of whatever you hit. Chocolate liqueur, everyone! Thanks! Oh, God. Here we go. Bloody hell! Where did that come from? So, what are we doing? Infuse vodka with a mince of caramel, chocolate, tomato, cocktail, all together? In short, it's a coconut white Russian. Oh, yes! You reckon eat the chocolate? Have it. What's this one? That is our Godfather. And we have a little music box here. So, in this Godfather cocktail, scotch whiskey, amaretto, hazelnut, and apricot. This is a yuzu margarita. Must share with Benji. Must share with... He's not looking, he's not looking. My, my, my. I don't want to leave that place. That coconut white Russian may be my favourite cocktail I've ever had in my life. Oh, good! Oh, here it is! We're here! I tell you what, we weren't kidding when you said we. This is the home of the Edinburgh Sour Beer. These guys have been kind enough to send some beers to the Top Door studio, brewed in a Belgian way, Belgian-style beer, but Belgians would burn this place to the ground given half a chance. This is the 24-karat gold, maple, carrot cake, caramel. Oh, that's good! Iron brew sour. Tell me what it is again. Iron brew. You drink it, you salivate, your cheeks invert, and you have a pretty good time. This is a rhubarb blackberry swirled donut. It does taste like a donut. Oh, that's quite sour, that one. Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! I haven't liked sour beers for a long time, but they were all like that. Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Best restaurant in Edinburgh. The Palmerston. Should we see if we can get a last-minute reservation? Oh, let's see. Hey, Palmerston? Yeah, now. It's all come to this. We have been asking the whole time where is the best restaurant, and hands down, the vote has been the Palmerston. It's brilliant. It's not fancy. It's not fine dining. It's just really great food, simple dishes. They're not ripping anybody off. And we met Lloyd, and he's wild, and the Guinness is flowing. Generally, something will change on the menu every service, whether that's the entire menu. Not just every day. Nope, every service. Oh, thanks, guys. I like the respect. So what are we going to have? Asparagus ricotta. We get a delivery once a week from Italy that comes directly from the markets in Milan. And then your asparagus is Scottish-grown. A rolled and brined lamb belly that's been poached and then deep-fried with some radishes and anchovies. Oh, yeah. Cockle. Wow, cockle hits different than head. I'd say it's because we've hung up for a week and allowed it to age a bit. All the muscles have relaxed. Some slow-roast pork, colored off really fast and then in an oven until it's really slow. Cod, deep-fried artichokes and spinach, and then a sauce made with loads of oloroso. Oh, hello. Do simple things well. I worked for Sky Gingell for a while and she said, Mother Nature does the hard work, we just have to not f*** it up. All right, so we're finishing it off with three desserts. Christ, I feel like we've eaten a lot. Twice-cooked chocolate cake, lemon pasta, Italian meringue, croissant ice cream that's made with all the leftover pastries in the morning. This has been a wonderful Edinburgh film and we finish it off, say the best till last, in a parmesan. So let's f***ing tuck into our dessert, eh? You're only saying it because he's here, mate. You're only saying it because he's here. Shut up.