I think 2026 is going to be the year of the Edinburgh pub, so I tried this overlooked local boozer
There is a lot happening on the gastropub front
In Edinburgh, I feel like this is going to be the year of the pub.
Among other things, we’ve got the reopening of Cooper’s Rest, from the team behind brewery Newbarns and The Palmerston, and Leith classic Noble’s has just been taken over by Bellfield Brewery, with chefs from Fin & Grape and Mirin in the kitchen.
The 400-year-old Beehive in the Old Town is reopening in February after a major makeover, and we already have newbies The Gilded Saloon and The Captain Darling doing its Sunday lunch thing in Stockbridge.
And, of course, there’s The Bonnington which has a landlord in the form of Carlo Carozzi. If you’re into Scotland’s street food scene, you may be familiar with this dude.
His stall, The Peruvian, pops up at various locations, including Edinburgh Street Food, where you can try his excellent lomo saltado, and he won the British Street Food Awards in 2018 and 2020.
The pub - on a corner crossroads near Pilrig Park - is a different proposition. It’s just launched a winter menu, with straight-down-the-line comfort food classics.
I blame Dry January and Frugal February, but we visited for a weekend lunch and it was completely dead inside, with poinsettias on the windowsills and a bulb slowly blinking, as if Stranger Things’ Vecna was in the vicinity.
Never mind, I’m into quiet pubs. We chose a booth, where there were empty bottles of Inca Kola - Peru’s answer to Irn-Bru, except presumably made from gold rather than girders - that were filled with terracotta-coloured wild grasses.
They also offer Scotland’s largest selection of the South American grape brandy that is pisco, so I tried the beautifully fruity Chicha Sour (£9), with Barsol Quebranta, chicha morada, which is made from purple corn, lime and a froth of egg white.
As far as food goes, although “Crisp Selection Also Available” are the finest four words known to humanity, we skipped that suggestion and went for one of the other snacks - a pickled egg (£2). This spliced beauty was gently vinegary, and had been preserved in a jalapeno brine for a green tint and spicy pop, with a bit of celery salt on top and mayo on the side. My Shayla, as they say on TikTok. Cancel the rest of the lunch, we’ll take a dozen of these instead.
The delight was served on a cute and intricately patterned plate. However, at this point, the Peruvian twists end abruptly.
The Starters included five dense and peppery haggis bon-bons (£5), served in a little enamel tin and sloshed in a sticky sweet take on HP sauce. They’d be pretty high up the bon-bon league table of Edinburgh. Bonne bonnie bon-bons.
We also tried the Coronation cauliflower (£5), with battered florets that were a little too mushy once you’d plumbed the depths of the tray, but we enjoyed the chaat-style mixture of crunchy potato puff pearls, bright yellow curry mayo and the zingy tamarind gel.
It’s all the crowd-pleasing archive hits for main courses. I mean, you could probably guess them all - fish and chips, burger, mac and cheese, tick tick.
Usually, restaurant reviewers tend to feel obliged to choose the more unusual things on the menu, but I was hamstrung.
Happily so, because I enjoy bangers and mash (£15) as much as the next human. This version consisted of a pile of slightly pan-singed but smooth mash, a moat of caramelised onion gravy and two huge and weighty mahogany pork saussies, like a pair of Steiff teddy bear arms.
My other half had gone for the retro bacon chop (£15). It was good, with a large pile of medium girth chips and an over-easy fried egg on the side.
If you’re the sort whose priority is to be well fed, your winter boots will be filled. And your socks.
We tapped out at dessert. I’d only managed to finish one sausage, so I knew the game was up.
However, you can probably guess what was on the list. That’s right, sticky toffee pudding, apple crumble and, the relative wild card of chocolate fondant.
I do wish the menu was slightly more exciting and they’d continued the Peruvian theme beyond the drinks list, but this kind of grub is familiar and approachable, and maybe that’s what they thought the area needed. There’s not that much else on the block.
So, it’s not so much a gastropub, as a pub-pub.
Still, there are worse ways to begin the year of boozers.
The Bonnington, 284 Bonnington Road, Edinburgh (0131-554 5824, www.thebonningtonleith.com)
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