Table of Contents Show
Last Updated : 24 September 2026
Leith has moved well beyond being simply Edinburgh’s historic port district. In 2026, it has one of the most concentrated and varied restaurant scenes in the Scottish capital, with Michelin-starred dining rooms sitting only a short distance from seafood restaurants, neighbourhood bistros, all-day cafés and newer chef-led businesses.
What makes eating in Leith particularly interesting is that there is no single “restaurant street”. The Shore remains the most recognisable dining area, but some of the neighbourhood’s most interesting food is now found on Henderson Street, Great Junction Street, Bonnington Road, Constitution Street and Portland Place.
There has also been a noticeable change since our original guide was published in 2022. Restaurants such as Castle Terrace and Anfora no longer belong in a current Leith guide, while newer names including Barry Fish, Dogstar, Dùthchas and Ardfern have strengthened the area considerably. Michelin’s current Leith selection includes The Kitchin, Martin Wishart, Heron, Barry Fish, The Little Chartroom, Dùthchas, Dogstar and Ardfern, showing how much depth the neighbourhood now has beyond its long-established names.
This guide therefore starts again with the question that matters in 2026: where should you actually eat in Leith now?
Best Restaurants in Leith at a Glance
Price symbols are intended as broad comparison indicators rather than a promise of what a particular meal will cost. Menus in Leith are increasingly seasonal, so checking the restaurant’s latest menu before booking is sensible.
1. The Kitchin – For a Landmark Leith Fine-Dining Experience
The Kitchin remains one of the restaurants most closely associated with Leith’s transformation into a serious dining destination.
Located at Commercial Quay, the restaurant builds its menus around the idea of taking Scottish ingredients “from nature to plate”. Its current format includes set lunch, à la carte and longer tasting-menu experiences, while Michelin continues to award it one star in the 2026 Great Britain and Ireland guide.
What makes The Kitchin relevant in 2026 is not simply the Michelin star. Leith now has many ambitious restaurants, but few offer quite the same combination of formal technique, Scottish seasonality and waterfront setting.
Visitors should also understand that the experience changes with the calendar. Scottish fish and shellfish may be prominent at one point in the year, while game, vegetables or other produce can take more attention in another season. That makes it a stronger choice for diners who want the meal to reflect Scotland rather than a fixed collection of signature dishes.
Best for: milestone dinners, visitors seeking a recognisably Scottish fine-dining experience and diners who enjoy tasting menus.
- Address: 78 Commercial Quay, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 6LX.
- Website: https://thekitchin.com/
2. Restaurant Martin Wishart – For Classical Technique on The Shore
There are newer and more casual restaurants in Leith, but Restaurant Martin Wishart remains an important part of the neighbourhood’s culinary identity.
The restaurant at 54 The Shore has held a Michelin star for more than two decades and remains starred in the 2026 guide. Michelin currently describes its cooking as combining high-quality Scottish ingredients with classical French technique.
That makes it subtly different from some of Leith’s younger tasting-menu restaurants. The appeal here is refinement rather than novelty for novelty’s sake. Scottish produce is given precise treatment, and the experience feels closer to traditional destination dining.
Its location also matters. A meal here puts visitors directly on The Shore, making it particularly suitable for people who want dinner to be part of a wider evening around Leith’s waterfront rather than an isolated restaurant booking.
Best for: anniversaries, traditional fine dining and diners who appreciate French technique applied to Scottish produce.
- Address: 54 The Shore, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 6RA.
- Website: https://restaurantmartinwishart.co.uk/
3. Heron – For a More Contemporary Michelin-Starred Dinner
Heron shows a newer side of high-end Leith dining.
Situated on Henderson Street, it currently holds one Michelin star and focuses heavily on Scottish produce. Michelin highlights ingredients such as sea trout and berries from Fife, while the restaurant itself currently offers tasting, lunch, à la carte and vegetarian or vegan menu options depending on service.
The useful distinction for diners is atmosphere. Heron is serious about food without trying to recreate an old-fashioned formal dining room. Counter seating and the neighbourhood setting make the restaurant feel connected to contemporary Leith.
For couples trying to decide between Leith’s Michelin-starred restaurants, Heron may appeal to those who want a tasting-menu experience with a slightly more modern, intimate character.
Best for: date nights, tasting-menu enthusiasts and visitors interested in contemporary Scottish cooking.
- Address: 87–91A Henderson Street, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 6ED.
- Website: https://www.heron.scot/
4. Barry Fish – One of the Most Important New Additions to The Shore
One of the biggest differences between a 2022 guide to Leith and a useful 2026 guide is Barry Fish.
Chef Barry Bryson’s restaurant at 62 The Shore centres on fish and shellfish sourced primarily from Scotland, alongside seasonal ingredients from producers around the UK. The restaurant has since entered the Michelin Guide, where inspectors particularly note its uncomplicated treatment of high-quality seafood.
This is an important addition because Leith has always been associated with seafood, but Barry Fish gives that connection a distinctly modern interpretation.
Rather than relying mainly on the traditional image of a waterfront seafood restaurant, the menu can move between smaller plates, whole fish, shellfish and more chef-driven combinations. The restaurant’s official site says its dinner menu changes monthly, another reason old menu descriptions should not be treated as permanent recommendations.
Barry Fish also demonstrates where Leith dining appears to be heading: serious ingredients and experienced cooking presented with less ceremony.
The Restaurant Connection: Barry Fish opened at 62 The Shore in a space previously occupied by the popular local bakery Mimi’s Bakehouse, giving a familiar Leith address a new life as a contemporary seafood restaurant.
Best for: seafood lovers who want something contemporary rather than traditional.
- Address: 62 The Shore, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 6RA.
- Website: https://www.barryfish.co.uk/
5. Dùthchas – For a Scottish Tasting Menu Away From the Waterfront
Dùthchas is particularly interesting because it helps explain why a modern Leith restaurant guide should no longer concentrate exclusively on The Shore.
Located on Great Junction Street, Dùthchas takes its name from a Scottish Gaelic concept concerning the relationship between people, animals, land and sea. The restaurant says its six-course tasting menu and shorter three-course “wee” tasting menu are shaped primarily by seasonal ingredients sourced from Scotland and its islands.
Michelin currently lists Dùthchas as a selected Modern British restaurant.
For diners, the interesting element is the focus on provenance. The restaurant states that front-of-house staff explain where ingredients have come from, turning the meal into something closer to a guided exploration of Scottish produce.
That creates a clear reason to choose it over simply asking which Michelin-starred restaurant is “best”. Dùthchas is better understood as a restaurant for diners who care about the connection between ingredients, producers and place.
Best for: food-focused visitors, Scottish produce and diners who prefer a structured tasting experience.
- Address: 187 Great Junction Street, Edinburgh EH6 5LQ.
- Website: https://duthchas-restaurant.co.uk/
6. Dogstar – A Sign of Leith’s New Generation of Restaurants
Dogstar is another restaurant that simply could not have appeared in the old version of this guide.
The Portland Place restaurant comes from Michelin-starred chef James Murray and the team connected with Nauticus Bar. Its menus can change daily or weekly, and Michelin describes the cooking as seasonal, produce-focused and suited to sharing, with some ingredients cooked over coals.
Dogstar deserves attention because it sits somewhere between casual neighbourhood dining and destination restaurant cooking.
That middle ground is becoming increasingly important in Leith. Not every diner wants white-tablecloth formality, but many still want a kitchen making deliberate decisions about ingredients, seasonality and technique.
It also illustrates why judging restaurants solely by permanent “signature dishes” is becoming less useful. At places such as Dogstar, the changing menu is part of the point.
Best for: adventurous repeat diners, sharing dishes and people who prefer an informal setting with ambitious cooking.
Address: 17 Portland Place, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 6LA.
Website: https://dogstarleith.com/
7. The Little Chartroom – Still Relevant, but Not Where Older Guides Remember It
The Little Chartroom appeared in our original article, but much of the old information has become obsolete.
It is now at 14 Bonnington Road rather than the location many older online descriptions associate with the restaurant. Michelin currently lists it as a Modern British restaurant and draws attention to its open kitchen, counter seating and tasting-menu format.
This is precisely why regularly updating restaurant content matters. An old guide could still correctly tell readers that The Little Chartroom is worth knowing about while simultaneously giving them the wrong impression of the current restaurant.
The modern Little Chartroom feels like a destination in its own right. The emphasis is on carefully composed dishes using high-quality ingredients, often Scottish, and its compact dining room makes it better suited to an intentional dinner than a spontaneous large-group meal.
There is another useful development nearby too: the same team now operates Ardfern next door, creating a small food destination on Bonnington Road rather than just a single restaurant.
Best for: intimate dinners, modern British cooking and diners who enjoy watching an open kitchen.
- Address: 14 Bonnington Road, Edinburgh EH6 5JD.
- Website: https://www.thelittlechartroom.com/
8. Ardfern – Perhaps the Most Flexible Restaurant in This Guide
Ardfern is difficult to place into a traditional “best restaurant” category, and that is exactly what makes it useful.
The venue describes itself as a café, bar and bottle shop, opening from the morning until late. It comes from Roberta Hall-McCarron and the team behind The Little Chartroom and eleanore. Michelin currently includes Ardfern in its Leith selection and categorises its cooking as international.
Unlike a tasting-menu restaurant where the entire evening needs to be planned around dinner, Ardfern works at different times of day. Breakfast or brunch can become coffee, wine, snacks or a full evening meal.
Its wine selection is another part of the concept: the venue says more than 100 wines are available either to drink there or take away.
For visitors staying in Leith for several days, this may actually make Ardfern one of the most useful addresses in the neighbourhood. It is somewhere you could visit for brunch on one trip and small plates and wine on another without having essentially the same experience twice.
Best for: brunch, solo dining, wine drinkers and diners who dislike overly formal restaurants.
- Address: 10–12 Bonnington Road, Edinburgh EH6 5JD.
- Website: https://ardfern.uk/
9. Dulse Seafood & Wine – For a More Relaxed Scottish Seafood Meal
Leith’s seafood story is not limited to The Shore.
Dulse Seafood & Wine operates on Constitution Street and describes itself as a neighbourhood restaurant built around Scottish seafood sourced through local fishermen and suppliers. The menu changes according to what is available, while oysters, shellfish and its seafood boil form important parts of the current offer.
That makes Dulse quite different from both Barry Fish and Fishers.
Barry Fish leans towards modern chef-driven seafood, while Fishers represents Leith’s established seafood tradition. Dulse sits somewhere between restaurant and social seafood experience, particularly with dishes designed for sharing.
For groups, that difference matters. A seafood boil or selection of shellfish can make the meal more communal than a conventional starter-main-dessert format.
Best for: groups, oysters, shellfish and relaxed seafood dinners.
- Address: 102 Constitution Street, Edinburgh EH6 6AW.
- Website: https://www.dulse.co.uk/
10. Fishers – The Leith Seafood Restaurant That Has Outlasted Trends
A new restaurant guide should include new openings, but freshness does not mean removing every longstanding business.
Fishers has operated on The Shore since 1991. Its Leith restaurant occupies a distinctive historic stone building and continues to specialise in seafood, with menus that may include shellfish, Scottish fish and other seasonal dishes.
Its value is different from Barry Fish or Dulse.
Fishers provides the classic version of eating seafood beside Leith’s waterfront. Visitors who picture a leisurely lunch near the water rather than a lengthy tasting menu may find it fits the occasion better than some of the neighbourhood’s more ambitious newcomers.
That longevity also tells us something about Leith’s restaurant scene. The area has changed dramatically, but seafood has remained one of the threads connecting old Leith with its newer culinary identity.
Best for: traditional seafood, visitors exploring The Shore and relaxed lunches.
- Address: 1 The Shore, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 6QW.
- Website: https://www.fishersrestaurants.co.uk/
What Has Changed in Leith’s Restaurant Scene?
The clearest change is geography.
A decade ago, visitors could reasonably associate Leith dining mainly with The Shore. In 2026, that misses a substantial part of the story. Bonnington Road now brings together The Little Chartroom and Ardfern; Great Junction Street has Dùthchas; Henderson Street has Heron; Portland Place has Dogstar; and Constitution Street adds another strand of contemporary seafood through Dulse.
The second change is the growing space between “casual” and “fine dining”. Restaurants such as Dogstar, Barry Fish and Ardfern show that sophisticated cooking does not necessarily require a traditional luxury restaurant format.
The third is that seasonality has become more meaningful than permanent signature dishes. The Kitchin, Dogstar, Dùthchas, Dulse and Barry Fish all emphasise changing produce or changing menus in different ways. A useful guide therefore should tell readers what kind of cooking to expect rather than promising that a dish mentioned several years ago will still be available.
Is Leith Worth Visiting Just for Food?
For a food-focused trip to Edinburgh, Leith can now justify an evening or even an entire day of its own.
A visitor could have brunch around Bonnington Road, explore Leith during the afternoon and then move towards Henderson Street, Commercial Quay or The Shore for dinner. That creates a very different experience from travelling into central Edinburgh solely for a restaurant reservation.
Leith’s tram connection has also made the district easier for visitors to incorporate into an Edinburgh itinerary, while many of the restaurants in this guide are concentrated within a relatively compact part of the neighbourhood.
The important point is not that every visitor should choose the same restaurant. Leith works precisely because its restaurants now serve very different occasions.
Which Leith Restaurant Should You Choose?
For an elaborate Michelin-starred experience built around Scotland’s seasons, The Kitchin, Restaurant Martin Wishart and Heron form the neighbourhood’s strongest established fine-dining group; all three appear among Edinburgh’s one-star restaurants in the Michelin Guide’s current 2026 listing.
For seafood, the choice is more nuanced. Barry Fish offers a contemporary chef-led interpretation, Dulse is suited to more informal seafood sharing, while Fishers provides the established waterfront experience.
Dùthchas is particularly suited to diners interested in provenance and tasting menus, while Dogstar offers ambitious cooking without as much ceremony. The Little Chartroom remains an intimate modern restaurant experience, and Ardfern is arguably the easiest option to fit around a less structured day in Leith.
That variety is ultimately the reason Leith deserves something more useful than a generic top-ten list.
Final Thoughts
The biggest mistake when describing Leith’s food scene in 2026 is treating it as a collection of seafood restaurants around one waterfront street.
The Shore remains central to the neighbourhood’s identity, but some of Leith’s most interesting recent development is happening beyond it. The Michelin-starred institutions remain important, yet newer restaurants have created more reasons to visit for casual meals, changing small plates, seafood, wine and modern tasting menus.
For visitors, that means there is no single correct answer to the question “What is the best restaurant in Leith?”
The more useful question is what type of Leith experience do you want?
Once that is clear, the neighbourhood now has an unusually strong answer.
Editorial Methodology
This guide was rebuilt in September 2026 rather than simply rewriting the original 2022 article.
Restaurants were checked against current official websites, operating information, addresses and contemporary restaurant-guide coverage. We also looked at how well each venue represents a different part of Leith’s dining scene, including fine dining, seafood, neighbourhood restaurants, tasting menus and more informal all-day options.
Michelin recognition was considered where relevant, but Michelin status alone was not treated as the only measure of usefulness. Location, type of experience, longevity, new openings, menu format and how each restaurant differs from nearby alternatives were also taken into account.
Because restaurant menus, prices and opening times change, readers should check directly with the restaurant before making a special journey.
