Leith, Edinburgh: Why I keep going back

The Water Of Leith, Scotland

Arriving at The Shore in Leith and standing on the bank of the Water of Leith feels like coming home, although to a more gentrified, popular and expensive place. These waters are Edinburgh's main river. It runs down through the city and empties into the Firth of Forth.

I can't help but immediately search for the swans, which are a constant. Every return, I look for them and their brood of fluffy cygnets. On a warm day the whole of The Shore comes out to meet the water, people spilling from the pubs and cafés onto the cobbles and down along the banks, and at the end of it the boats stand up against the sky, absurdly large for a river this size.

Swans in Leith Scotland

The stone is grey and the streets are cobbled and the harbour here has been a harbour since Anglo-Saxon times. In 1771 The Shore became the first street in Leith to get public street lighting, oil lamps, installed because people kept walking into the river in the dark. In 1895 it became the first street in Edinburgh to get electric light. The place has always been slightly ahead and slightly rough, both at once.

A short walk, or in my former years, a jog, takes me west to Newhaven, where there is a tiny harbour, a lighthouse, and a red Victorian fish market building that still holds a working fishmonger. Welch has been there since 1959. On a clear day the three Forth bridges sit out on the horizon.

But my favourite thing about that walk along the rocky shoreline is a section of walls. Someone has painted ANTI CLIMBING PAINT on them in large letters, and beneath and adjacent to the words, are the skid marks. Dozens of them, every kind of sole, left by everyone who read the sign and needed to find out for themselves. It always gives me a great giggle.

Two restaurants in particular keep me coming back to this stretch of water. The Kitchin and Restaurant Martin Wishart. Two Michelin stars within a few minutes' walk of each other, on a short street sitting on a working harbour. That is an unreasonable concentration of good cooking.

Why I keep going back

I have been returning to both since 2012. That is a long time for a restaurant to hold my attention, and there are not many that have.

Tom Kitchin's dining room sits in a converted whisky warehouse on the water. The premise is simple enough that most kitchens fail at it. From nature to plate. If it isn't in season in Scotland, it isn't on the menu.

The dish that defines it

The hand-dived Orkney scallops, baked in the shell.

Hand-dived matters. Most scallops are dredged, which means dragging the seabed and hauling up sand along with everything else. A diver picks them individually, which is more expensive, better for the seabed, and produces a scallop with no grit in it and no waterlogging.

They arrive in the shell, sweet and gently salty, tasting so freshly of the sea that the distance between Orkney and the plate collapses.

What else to order

OMG, everything. But for anyone who is landlocked or has not eaten true seafood, properly sourced and truly honoured as the star of the show, try the seafood on offer. If there is a razor clam, have it.

Razor clam at The Kitchin, Leith Edinburgh, Scotland

Practicalities

I tend to travel off season so booking is often easier. I do like to go for lunch, as that sometimes is an easier table. Do plan ahead, as this is not a place to miss if you are in Edinburgh. The surprise menus are amazing, so trust the process. You won't be disappointed. These are not short meals, as each and every course is specifically prepared. Expect to stay a while and enjoy your time.

Below are a few photos of an amazing lunch I had. Each ingredient so gorgeously attended to.

A nod to Martin Wishart

Restaurant Martin Wishart is another experience entirely, a quiet and refined dining space right on the cobblestones above the Water of Leith.

None of the rest of this happens without him. He opened on The Shore in 1999, three years after Trainspotting had told the world exactly what it thought of Leith. In 2001 he was awarded a Michelin star, the first in Leith and the first in the history of Edinburgh. He has held it every year since, which makes it the longest-held star in Scotland.

Edinburgh-born, out of school at fifteen, trained under Albert Roux and Marco Pierre White, then home to cook French technique over Scottish produce on a waterfront that was still deciding what it wanted to be. Everything that came after, Kitchin included, came after him.

Edinburgh now has seven starred restaurants. Leith alone holds several. That all traces back to one man betting on a street nobody wanted.

This is a place that has captured my heart, and I hope to return soon.