Entertainment in Edinburgh
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Beehive Inn
The historic Beehive – a former coaching inn – is a big, buzzing party-pub, with a range of real ales, but the main attraction is sitting out the back in the Grassmarket's only beer garden, with views up to the castle.
reviewed
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Last Drop
The name commemorates the gallows that used to stand nearby, but the only swingers today are the pub’s partying clientele, largely students and backpackers.
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Canny Man’s
A lovably eccentric pub, the Canny Man’s is made up of a crowded warren of tiny rooms that are crammed with a bizarre collection of antiques and curiosities (a description that could also apply to some of the regulars), and where the landlord regularly refuses entry to anyone who looks scruffy, inebriated or vaguely pinko/commie/subversive. If you can get in here, you’ll find it serves excellent real ale, vintage port and Cuban cigars.
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Athletic Arms
Named after the cemetery across the street – the grave-diggers used to nip in and slake their thirst after a hard day’s interring – the Diggers dates from the 1890s. It’s still staunchly traditional – the decor has barely changed in 100 years – and has recently revived its reputation as a real-ale drinker’s mecca by serving locally brewed Diggers’ 80-shilling ale. Packed to the gills with football and rugby fans on match days.
reviewed
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Stereo
Stereo pulls in a pissed-up, dance-till-you-puke crowd, who queue up for the weekly Shagtag, a hugely successful student night which involves a complicated snogging-by-numbers event. Weekends are devoted to party nights, with the crowds gamely thrashing away to a soundtrack of pop, funk, disco and house while trying not to barf up the gallon of cheap promo drinks they just downed.
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Liquid Room
Set in a subterranean vault deep beneath Victoria St, the Liquid Room is a superb club venue with a thundering sound system. There are regular club nights Wednesday to Saturday as well as live bands. The long-running and recently relaunched Evol (Friday from 10.30pm) is an Edinburgh institution catering to the indie-kid crowd, and is regularly voted as Scotland’s top club night out.
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Cafe Royal Circle Bar
Perhaps the classic Edinburgh bar, the Cafe Royal’s main claims to fame are its magnificent oval bar and the series of Doulton tile portraits of famous Victorian inventors. Check out the bottles on the gantry – staff line them up to look like there’s a mirror there, and many a drink-befuddled customer has been seen squinting and wondering why he can’t see his reflection.
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Wee Red Bar
The Wee Red Bar has been around so long there’s a danger the authorities will slap a blue plaque on it and declare it a national monument. Wee, red and frequented, hardly surprisingly, by lots of art students, it’s famous for the Egg, a weekly smorgasbord of classic punk, ska, northern soul, indie etc that is still one of the best club nights in the city.
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Brauhaus
The bar itself is fairly small – half a dozen bar stools, a couple of sofas and a scattering of seats – but the ambition is sizeable, with a vast menu of bottled beers from all over the world, ranging from the usual suspects from Belgium, Germany and the Czech Republic, to more unusual brews such as Paradox Smokehead (a 10% ABV stout aged for six months in a whisky cask).
reviewed
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Abbotsford
One of the few pubs in Rose St that has retained its Edwardian splendour, the Abbotsford has long been a hang-out for writers, actors, journalists and media people, and has many loyal regulars. Dating from 1902, and named after Sir Walter Scott’s country house, the pub’s centrepiece is a splendid mahogany island bar. Good selection of Scottish and English real ales.
reviewed
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Cumberland Bar
Immortalised as the stereotypical New Town pub in Alexander McCall-Smith’s serialised novel 44 Scotland Street, the Cumberland has an authentic, traditional wood-brass-and-mirrors look (despite being relatively new), and serves well-looked-after, cask-conditioned ales and a wide range of malt whiskies. There’s also a pleasant little beer garden outside.
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Roseleaf
Cute and quaint and verging on chintzy, the Roseleaf could hardly be further from the average Leith bar. Decked out in flowered wallpaper, old furniture and rose-patterned china, the real ales and bottled beers are complemented by a range of specialty teas, coffees and fruit drinks (including rose lemonade) and well above average pub grub (served 10am to 10pm).
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White Hart Inn
A brass plaque outside this pub proclaims: ‘In the White Hart Inn Robert Burns stayed during his last visit to Edinburgh, 1791.’ Claiming to be the city’s oldest pub in continuous use (since 1516), it also hosted William Wordsworth in 1803. Not surprisingly, it’s a traditional, cosy, low-raftered place. It has folk/acoustic music sessions seven nights a week.
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Basement
The Basement is a laid-back and pleasantly grungy bar – check out the weird, welded furniture made from tank-tracks, camshafts and motorcycle chains – with staff decked out in Hawaiian shirts that are almost as loud as the decor. Background tunes are upbeat but not intrusive and, if you get peckish, excellent Mediterranean and Mexican munchies are available.
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Athletic Arms (the Diggers)
Named for the cemetery across the street (the grave-diggers used to nip in and slake their thirst after a hard day’s interring), the Diggers dates from 1897. Its heyday as a real-ale drinker’s mecca has passed, but the beer is still good, the decor has barely changed in 100 years, and it’s packed to the gills with football and rugby fans on match days.
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Auld Hoose
Promoting itself as the Southside’s only ‘alternative’ pub, the Auld Hoose certainly lives up to its reputation with unpretentious, old-fashioned decor, a range of real ales from remote Scottish microbreweries (Trashy Blonde from Brewdog on Arran, Avalanche Ale from Loch Fyne in Argyll), and a juke box that would make the late John Peel weep with joy.
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Assembly Bar
Assembly originally opened in 1996 (as Iguana), making it positively prehistoric for a style bar, but a combination of timeless decor, cool sounds, big sofas and good-value food has kept it popular. There’s a relaxed crowd of mostly students topping up on coffee during the day, but the atmosphere heats up as pre-clubbers pour in during the evening.
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Bongo Club
The weird and wonderful Bongo Club is home to Big N Bashy, a Saturday night club dedicated to reggae, grime, dubstep and jungle. Also worth checking out is the booming bass of roots and dub reggae night Messenger Sound System (boasting 'a sound system that could knock you out'). The club is open as a cafe and exhibition space during the day.
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Dragonfly
A super-stylish lounge bar with a Raffles of Singapore vibe – it’s all crystal chandeliers, polished wood and oriental art – Dragonfly has won rave reviews both for its innovative cocktails and its designer decor. Grab a seat in the neat little mezzanine, from where you can look down on the bar as the Singapore Slings are being slung.
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Kenilworth
A gorgeous, Edwardian drinking palace, complete with original fittings – from the tile floors, mahogany circle bar and gantry, to the ornate mirrors and gas lamps – the Kenilworth was Edinburgh’s original gay bar back in the 1970s. Today it attracts a mixed crowd of all ages, and serves a good range of real ales and malt whiskies.
reviewed
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Opal Lounge
The Opal Lounge is jammed at weekends with affluent twenty-somethings who’ve spent £200 and two hours in front of a mirror to achieve that artlessly scruffy look. During the week, when the air-kissing crowds thin out, it’s a good place to relax with an expensive but expertly mixed cocktail. Expect to queue on weekend evenings.
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Villager
A cross between a traditional pub and a pre-club bar, Villager has a comfortable, laid-back vibe. It can be standing-room only in the main bar in the evenings (the cocktails are excellent), but the side room, with its brown leather sofas and subtropical pot plants comes into its own for a lazy Sunday afternoon with the papers.
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Cloisters
Housed in a converted manse (minister’s house) that once belonged to the next-door church, and furnished with well-worn, mismatched wooden tables and chairs, Cloisters now ministers to a mixed congregation of students, locals and real-ale connoisseurs. It has decent grub and coffee, and a nice warm fireplace in winter.
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The Tun
Set among the glass-and-steel architecture of the redeveloped Holyrood district, the Tun is a funky fish-tank of a place, with chunky leather sofas and steel bar stools. It’s popular with political types and media people from the neighbouring BBC studios and the Scotsman newspaper offices just across the road.
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Clark’s Bar
A century old and still going strong, Clark’s caters to a clientele of real-ale aficionados, football fans (there are three TVs), local office workers and loyal regulars, who appreciate an old-fashioned, no-frills pub with lots of wood panelling and polished brass, and cosy little back rooms for convivial storytelling.
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