Edinburgh

Castlehill · The Royal Mile

The Witchery sits almost underneath Edinburgh Castle, inside buildings dating back to 1595, and at night the Original Dining Room feels like Guillermo del Toro adapting Poe with Edinburgh itself as the set. The ceiling is low and painted with heraldry, seventeenth-century oak has darkened almost to black, candles catch on silver and crimson leather, enormous old church candlesticks rise above the tables, tapestries cover the walls and a bust of Lucifer watches from a window alcove. It is ecclesiastical, sepulchral, grand and slightly sinister, and the Secret Garden keeps the same spell going downstairs through stone, flowers and a painted ceiling of tarot imagery and angels playing bagpipes.

Under all that candlelight, you still get a genuinely excellent dinner. The cooking is ambitious and luxurious, built around excellent Scottish produce and grand classical dishes: grouse, Scotch beef, red deer Wellington, lobster Thermidor, with a cellar running to more than 600 bins, beautifully laid tables and hospitality that feels completely at home with all the ceremony around it. For the full experience, book the Original Dining Room at night and give it the evening. The Witchery is one of Edinburgh’s essential experiences, not just one of its restaurants.

The Balmoral · 1 Princes Street

Number One is downstairs at The Balmoral, in a deep-red dining room with white linen, big banquettes and properly spaced tables. It is the kind of place to book when you want a proper fine-dining dinner in Edinburgh: contemporary Scottish cooking, very good ingredients, a bit of creativity, and service that understands the rhythm of a long meal.

Head chef John Munro works closely with Scottish producers, forages around Edinburgh and the East Lothian coast, and they even keep bees at The Balmoral for the restaurant’s honey. That level of attention comes through in the food without becoming the whole story. The fish, shellfish, game and vegetables are handled with care, the cooking is modern without losing sight of the ingredient, and the meal is paced beautifully from start to finish. It all comes together into a genuinely excellent dinner: thoughtful, technically sharp and very well looked after, with the kind of detail that makes fine dining feel worth doing properly.

New Town · 49A Thistle Street

Dusit is a tiny Thai restaurant on Thistle Street, opened in 2002 by Bangkok-born restaurateur Pom. It is very easy to miss from the street, tucked behind a discreet frontage and a small dining room.

Inside, the hospitality is warm and homey, and the food is outstanding: fragrant, spicy, rich and absolutely packed with flavour. There is chilli, lime, basil, kaffir lime and curry paste all over the menu, and everything tastes vivid and memorably delicious. It is the kind of meal you remember afterwards because every bite had so much going on.

Fourth floor, 33 Castle Street, Edinburgh EH2 3DN

Chaophraya is one of Edinburgh’s more unexpected rooms. You go up four floors from Castle Street and suddenly you are under glass with Edinburgh Castle straight across the skyline, the rooftops of the city below and the Firth of Forth out to the north. At night it is lively and a little glamorous rather than formal: dark wood, music, cocktails moving around the room and a terrace outside when the weather cooperates.

Order the Tod Man Khao Pohd. They are sweetcorn cakes with red curry, kaffir lime, sweet chilli and peanuts, absolutely packed with corn and crisp around the edges, and they were outstanding. The pork ribs arrive glazed and sticky under an enormous ring of grilled pineapple. It is generous, very good Thai food in a rooftop restaurant with a cool bar that actually has the energy to match the view.

Leith · 14 Shore, Edinburgh EH6 6QN

There is a 1919 ship moored on the Shore in Leith that you can just walk onto for a drink. Ocean Mist is technically a hotel now, but forget the hotel part for a second; you need to see the inside. It is all dark wood, portholes, curved walls and narrow passages, and then you get to the Castle View Bar, with leather chairs, the stern windows wrapping around the room and this huge mirrored ceiling above you. It feels properly like being inside an old ship, because you are.

The boat has had a very strange life too: it was built as a minesweeper, later became the private yacht of Kenelm Guinness, racing driver and member of the Guinness brewing family, went back into service during the Second World War, then spent years in Leith as restaurants and nightclubs before being restored into what it is now.

It is not necessarily where you need to stay in Edinburgh, but it is absolutely somewhere worth going for a drink.