Bec
We enjoyed our meal and experience here! We didn’t have a booking but the staff managed to find us a table. Would recommend booking though as shortly after we arrived, people were turned away. Staff were very friendly and attentive. Has a nice cosy and traditional atmosphere to it. The chicken burger and vegetarian lentil pie were both delicious!
krzysztof rakowski
Reasonable prices of food. Scottish classics like Cullen skink delicious and fulfilling. Portion of chips is a killer, way too big! But better like that than too small. Very friendly service
Eric Manning
Lovely dining experience, service and 16th century atmosphere. I started out with cauliflower/coriander soup, then had Sheppard's pie and finished with sticky toffee pudding. Very well balanced flavors with fresh ingredients I thought. Oh yes, the hometown ale went well with my three course dinner.
Donald Gibson
A most excellent pub. Staying at the Market Street Hotel just down the street. I wandered in and had a delightful experience with a young serving staff from Australia. The delicious Cullen Skink and tasty side of veg--crispy and tasty broccoli, carrots, and green beans--was just the right portions to save room for the important stuff, what we in the U.S. call dessert but which I know from all my books by British authors and all the British telly I watch is known as pudding: Sticky Toffee Pudding. Will return!
RIP Bob
International reviewer: The Doric is a must do pub/restaurant in Edinburgh's old town. Just a short walk down from the castle, it's a great place for a meal during the day or in the evening after you've been seeing the sights.
Great staff, food and drinks. You will need to book if you want a meal as it's popular for a reason. Cozy in winter, you can get a cute view from the second floor restaurant while you munch.
Price wise it's all very reasonable, but be warned a main will be enough for most normal eaters (the starters are delicious but unless you're a big eater a main and a starter may be too much). This is important because the desert menu is delicious (see, sticky toffee pudding) and you'll want to have room for it.
You have a great range of local and imported drinks - we appreciated the local ales they had available at the time. They can also fix you most spirits and even have a delicious cocktail range.
Specials rotate daily so they're always worth a look.
We'll be back on our next trip for sure.
Jen Benningfield
Stopped in for lunch. Pub is downstairs. Restaurant is up. Around 2 pm we were just one of 3 tables. Mussels were soo good. Got the burger with salad and chips & was very good. Son loved his shepherds pie. Drinks are affordable and huge selection. Staff wasn’t too speedy but have to remember things are slow moving down here. No place to leave tip with credit and didn’t have cash but I hear that’s the way it is around here so that’s how it went. Nice window view to see some of the city.
Georgie Wilson
Lovely quaint pub that is hidden upstairs. The food was filling and wholesome. I recommend booking ahead. We arrived early and only just got a table.
Umang Bhatia
What a wholesome experience with good food, beautiful views and great hospitality. Their Cullen skins is a must have. Tip - get the sitting upstairs to enjoy great views.
Janey Parker
The Sunday Roast was amazing so tender and tasty! Had sticky toffee pudding after but was too good and forgot to take a picture.
Dean Cecconi
Short walk from our hotel. Exactly what we were looking for. Food was great. Had the fish and chips, mussels, and salad. Definitely want to make reservations ahead of time.
Jai Patel
Do Try the Locale Craft beers here , the Upstairs section is Vibrant and Quaint !
Anvi Deol
Whenever we visit Edinburgh we always try to visit the Doric. The food is excellent and service is great. Tentative service but does not pester. Which is just the right balance.<br/><br/>The food is lovely, recently had a steak which was perfect.<br/><br/>You will never feel hungry at the Doric. Generous portions too.<br/><br/>The wee bar downstairs is also great for a quick drink before or after.
Alison Dela Cruz Perey
I love the place!!<br/><br/>It is my first time visiting Scotland and this is the first restaurant that i tried.. The service is very good and welcoming. I interior is really old and needs a little touch up, some of the tables are not stable.. but despite of those things the food are awesome! My mom and i ordered Fish and Chips and Mussels!! Its really delicious!! We enjoyed dinning and definitely come back once i visit Scotland again... Good memories last forever
Ryan Breeland
2010, Birmingham, New Street Station - I'm an American who's been living in the UK for about 2 weeks. Still struggling with reading the departure tables, I approach a uniformed man to ask, “Where’s the furthest train going, leaving in the next 15 minutes?”<br/><br/>“Edinburgh, Platform 7. Leaving….um… Now, actually!”<br/><br/>A few hours on the Virgin train later, and with the haunting notion that the train station worker probably submitted a suspicious traveler report, I arrive in Edinburgh. To my great relief, I exit the train with the Ministry of Defence and the Office of Immigration Services having not been notified on my behalf.<br/><br/>Edinburgh, Market Street – I begin looking for places to stay for the night. It becomes increasingly clear why people generally “plan” trips. I go to the welcome center in New Town and find a hostel on Argyle St. that fits into my budget, and I call to hold a bed. I cross back over the station and begin searching for a place to eat dinner. The Doric looks interesting, so I go. It’s about 4:40 (16:40), and I’m not aware of this at the time. I ask for a table for one. His expression told me that this was the kind of place you generally needed a reservation for on Friday evenings, but he said, “We haven’t actually begun seating anyone, not til five. But if it’s just you, I don’t see the harm in that. Come on.” He leads me upstairs to an empty dining room offset from a bar of sorts. It is a very quaint, subtle elegance… you would miss it, if you weren’t romanticizing everything. I ordered the Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties with the 1488 as suggested on the menu. It was sublime. Yes, I was starving. Yes, I was finding every detail about everything novel. But, he didn’t have to seat me. He didn’t have to go talk to the kitchen staff and ask for a favor, just for me. I found thousands of things interesting and exciting during the three months I was in the UK. I don’t remember them all, certainly not as vividly as this place. The food was simple, yet perfect. The host/server treated me like I went to school with him. He even showed me how to get to my hostel.<br/><br/>I will never forget The Doric.
Malva Soto Blamey
Really small courses and very expensive, the food wasnt bad at all but it wasnt out of this world either. The location is pretty good,next to weverley, but thats pretty much all there's to it.
Pritta Ayu
We've booked 2 weeks before we went to Edinburgh by e-mail. They said we need to make advance down payment since we booked for 16 people. However, we couldn't make the down payment since we just arrived in Edinburgh at the same day we booked our dinner. Surprisingly, after I made the phone call and apologized, the Manager was agree to welcome us anyway. (I had some bad experiences about booking with down payment, thus I was happy about their feedback)<br/>What more can I say? I think this first Gastro Pub in Edinburgh is almost perfect. Me and 15 other family members was so excited about their food and friendly service. The salad was fresh. The lamb chop is pretty fantastic, very juicy and tender. And for dessert, I recommend the Sticky Toffee Pudding. Just the perfect amount of sweetness! It's very rare to have an equal satisfaction eating experience from Appetizer, Main and Dessert at first try.<br/>I would love to come back again someday, and trying out the other menus.
Scrumptious Scran
The Doric – An old haunt that’s maybe in need of a new approach...<br/><br/>Edinburgh is blessed with a plethora of great places to eat. Not only that, but – like pretty weeds poking through cracks in a garden path – new gastro-pubs, bistros and restaurants seem to appear in my home town on a monthly basis. With this constantly emerging choice it’s perhaps unsurprising that favoured old haunts sometimes fall by the wayside. <br/><br/>I must admit that I do feel a wee bit regretful when circumstances change, and visits to oft-frequented stomping grounds begin to tail off. On the flip side, re-acquaintance with a now neglected eatery or hostelry can be joyous, when their present offerings live up to rose-tinted memories of meals past. With this in mind, when JML and I met a couple of friends for lunch the other weekend, I was both intrigued and a little trepidations when one of them suggested dining at The Doric.<br/><br/>Situated just behind Edinburgh’s Waverley railway station (in Market Street), The Doric is housed in an architecturally-impressive 17th century tenement building, and bills itself as “Edinburgh’s oldest gastro-pub”. The bistro section of the establishment, located above a separate bar, is accessed via stairs that would not be out of place in an instalment of Harry Potter. Walking into the restaurant it seemed little had changed from the last time I dined there over four years ago – still the same primrose yellow walls punctuated with an eclectic array of prints, and dark wood floors and furniture. Except, maybe things looked a bit more down at heel than I remembered. <br/><br/>We joined one of our – already ensconced – lunching partners and placed our drinks order with the Maitre d’, just as the final member of our party arrived. Service was friendly and courteous. But when we were handed the menus, my immediate thought was these had seen better days – both physically and in terms of contents. And while we perused the, somewhat dog-eared and grubby, menu cards the bottles of wine and water we had ordered were literally plonked – unopened and unannounced – on our table by another member of waiting staff. The portents, to be frank, were not good… <br/><br/>Now I must admit, I sometimes struggle to do a review justice when there are more than two of us dining, as there are maybe too many viewpoints to take into consideration – tastes and preferences often seem to get a bit complicated. This restaurant’s menu is not short on choice either, even if many of the dishes might be considered “pub grub stalwarts”. Add to this mix the fact that one of our party was gluten intolerant – which, to give The Doric its due, it did its utmost to accommodate –I thought we might be in for some mixed opinions. However, by the time it came to don our coats, consensus reigned amongst our party that our dining experience was a bit hit and miss.<br/><br/>My starter of mussels in a white wine and cream sauce was tasty enough. The shellfish were plump, but the white granular substance covering them indicated the cream had split from the sauce during cooking. Plus, the accompanying chunk of bread was a tad dry, as if it had been cut for a while. JML’s goats’ cheese tart was nicely presented and appetising, but was somewhat dominated by the inclusion of a whole round of baked cheese. The dishes of smoked duck, and smoked salmon seemed to be eagerly consumed across the table from us – the later accompanied by a gluten-free toast which was surprisingly tasty. <br/><br/>Another bottle of wine arrived – thankfully, this time opened and poured – at the same time as our mains. To be honest, my chargrilled rump of lamb was lovely. It possessed just the right level of rareness and its Madeira sauce matched it well. The accompanying Boulangère potatoes were adequate enough – though they would have benefited from some crispness to their surface, but the whole roast pepper and turned artichoke didn’t contrast the richness of the meat as much as I had hoped.<br/><br/>JML decided on the “home made” shepherd’s pie, which was – as the menu description suggested –homely rather than tantalisingly tasty. Our friends variously plumbed for chicken with chorizo, and the pork belly and loin. The chicken was moist and nicely accompanied by butter beans and chunks of spicy sausage, but in combination with a cream sauce maybe the sum of the dish was a little over rich. In relation to the pork-fest, the belly was very nicely cooked with a deep flavour, but the loin was slightly underwhelming, and whilst the sweet pepper coulis added tasty zippiness this highlighted that the accompanying fondant potato and honeyed carrots were a bit insipid, by comparison. <br/><br/>See full review at: http://www.scrumptiousscran.com/2013/12/review-doric-old-haunt-thats-maybe-in.html#sthash.rDq15mF1.dpuf
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