Haymarket

Head down to Haymarket and you'll find yourself in one of Edinburgh's most underrated residential pockets—the kind of area where locals actually live rather than just visit. This Nicholson's pub sits comfortably among the tenements and corner shops, the sort of place that gets rammed with people from the surrounding flats on a Friday night. You get proper pub food, decent pints, and a genuine mixed crowd: families, shift workers grabbing dinner, mates meeting up. It's the antithesis of the tourist-heavy spots in the Old Town. The reviews speak for themselves—people keep coming back because it's reliable, unpretentious, and does exactly what it says on the tin.