The Edinburgh ‘village' that might be Britain's coolest neighbourhood

Telegraph

07-07-2025

'Stockbridge is a very Edinburgh version of hip, more urbane than unrelentingly urban,' smiles tour guide Gareth Edwards over lunch at Captain Darling, Edinburgh's coolest district's hottest newest dining spot. 'The boutique shops, artisan cafés and gourmet restaurants are built on solid sandstone that keeps it grounded and somewhere that us locals still want to live.'
And plenty do want to live here. This idyllic hideaway of shaded river banks and elegantly old-world, tree-shrouded streets reclines barely a 10-minute stroll from the core of one of the world's most wondrous cities. Ann Street was earlier this year named by the Bank of Scotland as Edinburgh's most expensive address, with an average house price of £1,807,000.
Henry Raeburn, painter and one of Edinburgh's most celebrated sons, lived on Ann Street in a suburb swimming in cultural history. Literally. Visitors clattered their carriages north to Stockbridge as early as 1789 when St Bernard's Well offered the chance to 'take the waters'. Painter Alexander Nasmyth's figure of the Greek goddess of health Hygeia still peers down to the Water of Leith, where a typically striking Antony Gormley work stands mid river.
This certainly isn't the Edinburgh of Trainspotting. You do get bouncers on doors in Stockbridge, but they're employed by the cult artisan Lannan Bakery to ensure their queues don't disturb the serenity. When Waitrose scouted for their first Scottish store in 2006, it just had to be Stockbridge.
Captain Darling is one of a new wave of restaurants that has cemented Stockbridge's perennially cool cachet. As we tuck into a prawn cocktail reinvented with west coast langoustines, Gareth Edwards adds: 'Stockbridge is the perfect blend of old and new. Here Edinburgh is not just a historic city for tourists, but a living breathing place for people to live their lives in a real community.' Manager Mark Barrett overhears us and chips in: 'Stockbridge is really special. It feels like a wee village inside the city, you get the best of all worlds here.'
In Stockbridge, the old and the new worlds don't so much collide as chime gently together over a matcha latte. Old-school fishmonger G Armstrong of Stockbridge sits cheek by jowl with Bento's poke bowls and boba tea. There are wine shops that would pass muster in Beaune, proper butcher George Bower, fine art picture framers, wee galleries and enough delis to amply provision any dinner party. Sculleries of Stockbridge are on hand if you need a new Aga. If it's caffeine you're after, Two Children Coffee is a knowing nod to stressed local hipster parents.
The continuing success is in staying relevant rather than just fading into a comfortable old age. When the trams finally arrived in Leith in 2023, along with yet another Michelin star (for the sublime Heron), Stockbridge's hip crown threatened to slip. But, as it always has, it has fought back.
Foodie newcomers include zeitgeist pleasing Scandi-chic Moss, with its Noma-trained chef, and Cata, where Spain meets Scotland under the expert stewardship of restaurateur Ignacio Campos. Stockbridge Eating House and the Italian restaurant and wine bar Sotto are new too.
The culinary riposte to Leith was complete when symbolically it was in Stockbridge not Leith that the Heron guys chose to open their new Skua venture, while Stockbridge's Avery also snared a Michelin star earlier this year.
Handily I'm in Stockbridge for the opening night of the Little Parlour, with Scott Goddard importing his winning ice cream and homemade biscuits formula from nearby South Queensferry. Goddard sees similarities with his hometown in terms of community and continuity: 'We didn't just want to open anywhere. It had to be Stockbridge and the right building'. And it is the right building, an old barber's shop with a heritage stretching back to 1890, with the past not just preserved, but celebrated.
Also at the opening is Lewis Kennedy of Talonmore, a local business that launched in 2021. As he pours me one of its signature non-alcoholic spirits, he extols the area's virtues: 'I live here and really could never leave. There is an amazing food and drink scene and superb boutique shopping. I love what Rare Birds Books do across the road, for example, celebrating women's writing. And everything here comes bathed in our history too.'
One could lose days in this little suburb. Walks tempt along the Water of Leith and into the famous Botanical Gardens; Inverleith Park too with its duck pond and soaring views of a skyline so beloved of Unesco. Stockbridge hosted the world's first rugby international, played at Raeburn Place in 1871. It would be remiss as a Scot not to acknowledge we sent England home to think again, outscoring the Auld Enemy. Rugby is still played in Stockbridge, alongside Scotland's international cricket matches.
From May until the end of July, sport now plays second fiddle to a very Stockbridge delight – the 'Neighbourgood' Market. Craft brewers and artisan food stalls serve their wares from food trucks, old buses and even a ski gondola.
My last stop is TV chef Tom Kitchin's Scran & Scallie. The mercurial Kitchin put his faith in Stockbridge by opening back in 2013. They call it a 'pub', though it offers Meursault by the glass. Plus cheese from Stockbridge's I.J. Mellis. Plus lobster from Newhaven a few miles away too. The lobster meat is removed, chargrilled with garlic and delicately placed back. It's not reinventing the wheel, more gently reassembling it to make something fine even better. Very Stockbridge.
How to do it
Gareth Edwards offers bespoke walking tours of Stockbridge and other parts of Edinburgh. Both www.adorescotland.com and www.theedinburghaddress.com offer fittingly luxurious accommodation in Stockbridge.