Edinburgh

Bruntsfield, Tollcross & Marchmont

The city's southern shoulder, ten minutes' walk from the castle and entirely free of visitors. Tollcross is the scruffy, useful end — theatres, cinemas, cheap noodles, the best pub interiors in Edinburgh. Bruntsfield above it is Victorian tenements and a long parade of independent shops facing a golf links. Marchmont behind is students and academics. None of it is on any itinerary and all of it is where the city actually eats.

Who it's for: Anyone staying more than three days who wants a night off from the Old Town. Eaters on a mid-range budget — this is where good neighbourhood restaurants cluster. Pub people: two of Edinburgh's finest surviving Victorian interiors are here. Anyone with an evening free and a taste for arthouse cinema or theatre. Golfers, oddly.

Things to know

  • Bruntsfield Links has a free, public 36-hole short golf course. Genuinely free — no booking, no green fee. Clubs can be hired nearby, or bring a putter.
  • This is a two-bus-stop neighbourhood: the 11, 15, 16, 23, 27, 45 and 47 all run from Princes Street down Lothian Road through Tollcross and up Bruntsfield Place. Ten minutes.
  • Bennets Bar has, per CAMRA, the finest historic pub interior in Edinburgh after the Café Royal — an unaltered 1906 saloon with a marble spittoon and a jug bar. Go and look even if you don't drink.
  • Bruntsfield Place is the best independent shopping street in the city: bookshops, record shops, delis, galleries and boutiques for the length of it, with almost no chains.
  • The Cameo on Home Street opened in 1914 and shows arthouse and repertory rather than blockbusters. It's one of the oldest working cinemas in Scotland.
  • The King's Theatre reopened in 2026 after a three-year redevelopment, with a fully accessible auditorium and a new autumn season — check what's on before assuming it's dark.
  • The restaurants here are neighbourhood restaurants, which means they fill with locals on weeknights and they're small. Book.
  • The Meadows connects this neighbourhood to the Southside on foot in ten flat minutes — the only level walk in this part of the city.