I tried lunch at this lively new Edinburgh family restaurant in a super cool location
It’s out with the old and in with the new this January
If Edinburgh’s food scene was a music one, it’d be full of boy bands.
Except for a few notable exceptions, there aren’t many women heading restaurants.
That’s as good a reason as any to celebrate Nami, whose name means ‘wave’ in Japanese, or ‘tasty’ in Finnish. This Leith newbie is owned by three sisters - Ashley Phillips, Natalie Togher and Gemma Clearie - making it the Haim of the restaurant world.
This sibling team was part of the family behind cupcake and scone purveyor Mimi’s Bakehouse, which recently closed its original 15-year-old Shore location.
Thankfully, this bakery and cafe’s other branches, including one on Market Street and another on the Royal Mile, remain, and they’ve retained the same 63 Shore address for Nami.
It’s a Pan Asian restaurant simply because the sisters decided, with the help of former Fhior owner Scott Smith’s hospitality consultancy business Blank Plate Creative, who also worked on Edinburgh favourites Lucky Yu and The Captain Darling, to open a place that serves their favourite dishes. Also, they felt that it was something that Leith was lacking.
Mimi’s regulars wouldn't recognise the space. They’ve painted over every inch of the signature pale toothpaste blue paint job - even the cornice - with a smoky green that’s been set off by Sriracha red formica tables and woven light fittings that resemble floppy sun hats.
They had me at hello, as we were welcomed with a red basket of prawn crackers.
For starters, we chose a couple of their British-Chinese takeaway favourites.
The sesame prawn toast (£6.50), was a comfort food treat that felt luxurious, as opposed to mum’s-gone-to-Iceland-esque.
Rather than the trad triangles, there were four uniform soldiers, speckled with sesame and onion seeds across the top of the velvety pink fishy strata, then topped with spring onions and with a thick and sticky matte black garlic dip in a ramekin on the side. Filthy and gorgeous.
I wouldn’t usually order the pork ribs (£8.50), since I’m not much of a gnawer. Caveperson has never been my favourite style of eating. Still, these were easy to manage, with garlicky flesh that was chewy but pleasingly so, with chevron stripes of hoisin sauce across the top. I happily nibbled right down to the bone.
We had these with a couple of cocktails, which have been designed in collaboration with bar Three Marys on nearby Henderson Street, and they’re bolshy delights. The Korean spicy Margherita (£11), with gochujang-infused Casamigos Tequila, grapefruit liqueur and lime, was a zesty hot tonic, and the Chinese old fashioned (£12), with ginger-infused Johnnie Walker Black, five-spice syrup and Angostura Bitters was mellow and sweet, with a kick.
They match the big bold flavour food really well.
Although there are also main courses like grilled beef rendang (£19), chicken, tofu or prawn pad Thai (£16) or shiitake dan dan noodles (£15), I couldn’t help ordering the sweet and sour chicken (£16). The meat-in-jam luminescent red sauce experience is pure nostalgia for me. This pushed those buttons, but was a bit fancier than the average, with a lighter and less glutinous pineapple-y sauce, and lots of colourful veggies among the battered fat roly-poly bolsters of chicken.
We also went for the miso fish (£16), which was a very salty but silky fillet that was hidden under a flurry of spice-powdered crispy noodles, coriander and ribbons of pickled ginger.
Unless you wanted a real drouth, it was best tempered with a bowl of sticky steamed rice (£5), rather than the equally sodium heavy salt and chilli tater tots (£5), which were slightly too intense for me.
Apart from the Luca’s ice-cream, the puddings are made by Mimi's peeps. You could choose from ginger sticky toffee pudding with butterscotch sauce, or Vietnamese coffee affogato, but we went for the coconut and lime brownie (£7.50).
I’m usually of the school that a brownie is an afternoon treat, with a cup of tea, but this was a perfect pudding, as it was gooey, and went down easy with a scoop of lime zest-sprinkled coconut gelato.
We also tried a portion of bright green matcha ice-cream (£4), which was super earthy and silky.
Well done to the Mimi’s sisters, for being - excuse the January inspirational phrase - the change they wanted to see in Leith.
I was sad to see the old bakery go, but Nami is something even better.
Read more: “I've been to 49 new Edinburgh restaurants in 2025, but returning to this old favourite was bliss”
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