Doctors

I’ve stopped into Doctor’s a few times and would say that the beer is good and the atmosphere is cool.
Doctor’s is the place I go to when I am stressed from school, wanting a beer with my lunch. When I go, there is always seating available and the staff immediately help me find a place to sit and get a pint on the way for me.
In terms of food, for me it was hit-​and-​miss. The burgers are good. I found that their chicken wings are not so good though (which is disappointing because I love wings). Anyway, other than that the wifi connectivity is good and you can actually get some work done there while you enjoy a pint (if you are so inclined).
It is worth noting that I have only stopped in during the mid-​afternoon and don’t know what the atmosphere is like in the evening, it may be different. But during the day the staff is good, the food is good enough, and the atmosphere is cool (with TVs if you like to watch sports).
Overall I would say that Doctor’s is a good place to enjoy lunch, have a pint, and watch the rain come down while you relax in their cozy seats.

After a great Unilocal event we were looking for some savoury food to fill our tummies, and that’s exactly what we found here. Doctors does a great selection of sharing platters, and we went for the veggie nachos and some chips.
The veggie nachos had all the right ingredients, but just not enough of it! We want them drowned in melted cheese please! And some bigger dip pots! They tasted great though!
A pub with a larger selection of ales and ciders always does well in my book, and I had some lovely blonde and chestnut ales last night!
The service was excellent, and food came incredibly fast. Atmosphere is lovely as well.
As we devoured our nachos, a band started playing some rock covers. It could’ve been great, but it was just average.
It’s good to know this place exists, but I would probably walk just a little bit further to find an even better pub!

This is our first visit to Edinburgh. Cool looking place. It was a nice day and there seemed to be a lot of happy pub-​ogers enjoying themselves so we stopped in for a beer. After walking around the meadow’s and sightseeing this really hit the spot. Friendly people and lively atmosphere.

This pub holds a special place in my heart since this is where my classmates and I always went to get a drink after class. But objectively there isn’t much special about. In fact it is downright standard.

The wind blew us into Doctor’s.
Okay, only sort of… we had come to meet some friends of friends for a drink. I wanted to eat here, but was told we would only be staying for drinks and moving on to someplace close, maybe in Grassmarket to eat… someplace closer than where I am? Do tell. Fine… I had a water.
We were able to find seating for eleven since it wasn’t busy. I kept seeing delicious looking food pass me by. My husband ordered a beer, but since they didn’t have what he wanted, he told them to surprise him. He should have asked what it was because when he wanted another, he couldn’t ask for another surprise. The place has a nice atmosphere… We were all able to have a lovely, audible conversation without anyone having to yell over music or overly boisterous patrons. I just wish I could have had the huge serving of fish and chips… It was Sunday too, I’m sure they had Sunday Dinner…
For the life of me, I can’t figure out the slot machine. Ha ha, laugh at the foreigner. I had some guy try to teach me the night before, but since I was rubbish, I just kept feeding pounds into the machine… Nope, I failed.

We met friends here before going to a show and I wish we had picked somewhere better. This place needs a good clean, the tables and bar were sticky and the seats were marked and grubby.
We went to order food but you need to have a table before you can do this. It was busy but we managed to get a table quite quickly. There were three vegetarian options on the food menu so I thought it would be fine, however this place falls into the ignorant category here as they mark a «V» on anything that isn’t meat not that has no animal products in it. So the mozzarella & pesto burger has Parmesan (contains rennet so not veggie) and the vegetable pie is in a suet pasty (not veggie) so I ended up with nachos which were ho-​hum to say the least. My husband who eats anything had bangers and mash and they also got an average review.
Bit on the pricey side at £4 a bottle of Peroni which is what I would expect to pay somewhere fancier but not here.
With the plethora of options of nice places to go in Edinburgh, this place for me doesn’t make the cut!

On my third visit to Edinburgh, I was finally staying in a very fancy hotel (Quartermile Apart Hotel) which was in the meadow’s (reviewing that very soon). After a long day of work, I decided to meet my friend who recently moved to Edinburgh for work. We were meeting after 5 years so the focus was not a extremely fancy place but just the conversation and company. I had spotted Doctors before while I was trying to find my hotel and it definitely was the landmark for me so I thought it would be unfair to not have at least one drink there AND it was extremely close from the hotel.
We went inside and it was a very warm pub feel which is kind of what I expected. A local band was playing some live folk music too, but I have to say that they were not even close to being good as the lead singer was completely out of sync (yes even I understood that). We decided to sit by the bar as its always good to have easy access to drinks (wink). The bar staff were really friendly just like other Scottish People (they are so refreshingly friendly) and we had good banter with them. The guy at the bar was convinced that I had an American accent (I get that from some people). They had a good selection of beers and ciders which is always a plus. The music was not ridiculously loud so it was possible to have a good conversation without having to lose your voice. The pub offers what it is supposed to — good selection of alcohol, moderate pricing, clean toilets and friendly bar staff and live music (which was not that great).
Verdict: Great place to catch up, I can see it must be very popular amongst students because of the generous pricing strategy!

Doctors isn’t is a pub I would want to spend an entire evening in, however it is a decent chain (same group as Milnes or Beehive) pub. It feels a little soulless, trying too hard to emulate a traditional pub and it is fairly popular with the student population so it can be busy.
However don’t discount it, it’s a good starting location with filling pub grub (provided by Taylor Walker) along with a normally decent selection of real ale. The one thing I always find slightly amusing is they stock Carling and Tennent’s, both fairly generic lagers…
In the end though accept Doctors at face value and enjoy your food and a quick drink.

I do like this bar due to it’s normally wide range of «real ales». But it has its draw backs: it is a popular student bar due to it’s location and it has multiple screens for showing sports (you can watch three different football matches at the same time sometimes). I appreciate not everyone will regard these as drawbacks.
It was closed for a refurbishment last year (I can’t say I noticed much of a difference), and is fairly typical old style bar décor, although most of it is probably fairly modern.
It is one of the Taylor Walker pubs and hence has the same menu as the others, which says on the menu something along the lines of «Great British traditional pub food» (or words to that effect), it’s no wonder visitors to our shores think we do lousy food! I’d seen the food served here on previous visits and it had looked pretty poor, but not one to prejudge I ordered a steak & ale pie (£7.25), certainly a great traditional pub dish. Worst I’ve ever had! The vegetables (carrots & mange tout?) I suspect they had been sitting under a heat lamp all evening in a puddle of oil/​butter, the chips I think were frozen oven chips and I’m guessing they threw the pie in a microwave for a couple minutes until it was hot, served with a small jug of gravy (possibly made from granules), IE. I reckon it was all ready made and brought in then heated up (I could be wrong). The pie was pretty tasteless with very thick and tough pastry, fairly generic meat and also pretty dry, luckily the gravy softened it up enough to cut!
From a chain pub at these prices I don’t expect much but I do expect better than this, perhaps I’m being unfair, I did visit in the middle of the Fringe, although it wasn’t overly busy (no worse than I’ve seen it on a Saturday afternoon), but perhaps the staff were reaching their limits (after three weeks of the Fringe most bar staff are probably suffering by now, especially as they are close to some of the busiest Fringe venues in town). Note: the staff were efficient and I couldn’t fault the service.
I will be back for a drink when I’m in the neighbourhood but I doubt I’ll be eating here again, although it IS a bit unfair to judge on a single meal. I would have only awarded it 2 stars if it wasn’t for the decent range of beers they have on tap.

Doctors is great for an evening drink with friends.
It reminds me of the old style pubs I’d go to with my Nana and yet maintains a young, trendy edge, primarily, it seems, through it’s staff and clientele.
When you’re there it strikes you as a ‘local place, for local people’ and yet you always feel quite comfortable!
Not a great selection of drinks, from what I can gather (cider girls don’t get much choice ’round these parts anyway) and I’ve never eaten here (or been in before 10pm) so I can’t comment on that.
One of my favourite Edinburgh pubs for a late (ish) drink on a Saturday night.

A cozy gastropub with friendly staff, good food, and good drinks; just the combination we were looking for on this night during our visit to Edinburgh.
Doctors was filled with all kinds of people from office works and university students to couples and old friends. The staff seemed a bit short yet extremely efficient and friendly. The place was fairly full with the football match on. The atmosphere had a great «neighborhood» feel to it.
The food was excellent and came out piping hot. Between the two of us, we ordered the Bangers and Mash and the Meat Pie and Mash. Everything was rich and flavorful with generous portions. I ordered a Rekorderlig cider which is a Swedish cider with a berry flavor. It was a new discovery and I greatly enjoyed it. I’m hoping to find a place to purchase Rekorderlig here in the U.S.
While in Edinburgh, we wanted to taste a variety of restaurants and pubs and this one was a nice addition. It was a overall great experience with good food and drinks along with a charming staff.

Just newly renovated, I was lucky enough to win a free meal at Doctors on their reopening night. So be warned I didn’t pay for the meal I had!
However the food was excellent. I had a massive burger. Proper ground steak with great toppings. Chips were chunky and very well done. Other than that the menu had some great pub favourites. All priced fairly reasonably.
The renovation looks good with a more «Old school Edinburgh» feel rather than the student pub feel that they were going for more recently.
Seating was well laid out and the TV’s hidden behind advertising signs. Which is where I hope they’ll stay most of the time. I don’t mind for the odd game but constant massive TV’s showing every game is ridiculous and ruins atmosphere in these places.
Also the soundtrack was much better than pre-​refurb when club anthems and crap pop was played far too loud. No music, quiet music were the order of the day yesterday with some decent folk singers later on. It worked well.
All in all the improvements are really good. recommend hitting it up for some food and beer!

While they have a nice bog-​standard house ale, and it’s an all right pub, it’s a bit on the spendy side (think London prices), it’s far too bright and far too loud.
There’s nothing particularly great or bad about it. A decent boozer and central. Just wander a bit further up to St. Mary’s. (Hint: see my other Edinburgh reviews…)
They do get extra points for the array of Scottish cask ales, though.

Doctors is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. I don’t really know why, I think it comes down to the location and the fact that some of the staff are really pretty cool.
I noticed that this place is labeled a gastropub. It is definitely NOT. I mean, they serve food, but there isn’t really anything expecially nice about it other than it is very reasonably priced and fills your belly without affronting it. They used to make these nachos that were just nacho cheese flavoured doritos with fake cheese sauce and fake guacamole on the side. The nacho lover within me was appalled. But, for some reason I kept ordering them, and recently they have started serving them with real toppings again, which made me happy.
The pints are very reasonably priced for the pub’s location, and there is plenty of seating whenever I go (pints after work during the week). I never have trouble getting prompt service and quite often have great craic with the bartenders.
All in all, the main thing it has going for it is the location, but it is also unpretentious and has –in my experience– good staff. There is a reason I keep going back.

This isn’t a pub that immediately catches your eye with any traditional décor or blindingly good prices, but it is a pub you are likely to come back to on another day. It’s hard to tell precisely what it is that makes this pub such an attraction, but the best I can think of is its homely feel. When sitting there you do not feel out of place and even on your first visit you are likely to look round with a familiar gaze.
Its prices are not cheap, though fairly reasonable given the location, but it does offer a great location for a social drink out. Whether you are on a pub crawl, watching the football or trying to relax it’s generally able to cater for your needs. The only downside is that it does not excite or wow you like other bars do and eventually you will go elsewhere, but in time you’ll be likely to return to this pubs homely atmosphere.

I don’t quite share the same contempt for this place as the rest of the reviewers, but it’s definitely not my favourite Edinburgh pub. It’s meant to be the Edinburgh medics’ pub, yet they never seem to be in there. The drinks are just to expensive for it to make itself a valid option for a ‘real’ pre-​drink. £3.50 a pint is nowhere near student prices!
They probably don’t need the student custom, however, as it’s always full of the local middle classes enjoying a post-​work drink. Apparantly their food is pretty good but, again, pretty expesnive for what it is.
It has a nice environment, although you’re always pushed to find a seat. Have a look and see what you think.

The pub Doctors is situated in a prime location. It is just a short walk away from the meadows and so it ought to catch all the students on their way home from University. However, on the occasions when I have been in for a drink, it has been mostly filled with older office workers rather than students. This could in part be because of the rather steep prices of the drinks — I once ordered a lemonade which came in a tiny glass and cost £1.50. Doctors does have a wide selection of lagers and ales which attracts a lot of customers, especially my flat mates who adores the Leffe!
They also serve the traditional pub food and they have special offers several nights a week offering a discount on drinks if a meal is bought. The Doctors staff are friendly and the pub regularly shows coverage of sporting events on its TV. Although it is relatively small inside, there is seating outdoors where you can take your drinks.

This was the first bar I ever went into as a fresher in University. As such, it holds somewhat of a special place in my heart… but I think that’s just me. When I told my brothers that I liked Doctors, they shunned and mocked me. Apparently it’s the breeding ground for all the medics on the prowl. As much as I quite fancy myself marrying a doctor (Patrick Dempsey please) I don’t think I’m ready to pick one up in the pub… a sleazy pub at that.
The staff were reasonably nice when I was there… not overwhelmingly so. My friends were asked to be quiet (even though it was a busy Friday night) and I was asked to move! The prices were reasonably good, and the selection was your standard bar plus a few colourful shots (for the easily-​led students).

This pub was named as such because it is where the training medics and doctors would head to from the Old Medical School located right across the street. The romantic idea of Edinburgh in the past with scholars heading here after a long day doing scholarly stuff is quickly diminished as soon as you walk into this pub today. Its moved along since and hosts a variety of clientele of various ages, although predominately first year students-​bushy eyed and full of energy (and student loans). I can’t see why this place is a target, there are loads of bars near by also conveniently located, whose bar staff will not ignore you when ordering and whose prices are a lot more reasonable.
Head here in the afternoon for your neighbours episodes or for a rugby game on the screen, or else later at night, when the crowds have moved along. There’s nothing really special to it I’m afraid.

One thing you can’t deny about this place is that it’s in a great location — right next to Uni, George IV Bridge and only 5 minutes walk from busy South Bridge.
For that reason I’ve been a handful of times for a drink after lectures with friends and I have to be honest, it’s location is the only reason I’m giving it as many as 2 stars! The drinks aren’t that cheap (£3+ for a pint), and on the one occasion I had food there it reminded me of school dinners, if I’m completely honest!
They do offer 20% off food/​drinks for students and NHS staff, but compared to the multitude of cheaper and better bars less than a stone’s throw away, it’s not enough to make this place stand out.
A friend of mine convinced me to go and give this place another try, and so we went to try their new promo lunch menu for £4.95… when we got there and found that there was a choice of a grand total of 3 dishes to choose from, we decided not to bother.
I haven’t experienced the bad service that so many other people mention in their reviews, that is one thing I should say in defense of this place. But it’s still not exactly somewhere worth rushing to.

Im Doctors war ich öfters. Es ist die typische schottische Sportkneipe mit dem dazugehörigen Flair am Ende des Studentenviertels. Hier gibts auch Bier von Kleinstbrauereien der Umgebung frisch vom Faß. Nicht zu touristisch und einfach nett, um mit Freunden dort auf ein Bier hereinzuschauen.

Ein weiterer typisch britscher Pub in der Naehe der Universitaet. Eigentlich hat der Pub alles zu bieten was ein Pub braucht, aber mehr halt auch nicht. Deshalb 3 aus 5!