The Haven

Super cute café with quirky furniture and cheap, tasty breakfasts!
I went with my girlfriend, who loves pancakes, for a late breakfast and walk by the shore and we found this little café. Awesome service and fantastic food. We had a chance to play some scrabble and just chill with the some good music. It just had a fantastic vibe and an amazing breakfast sandwich, especially for the price.
She loved the pancakes as well! Overall I would say it is worth going out of your way to this little gem of a breakfast place! Get to it! (Also a great malteser cake!)

Amazing breakfast. Get the all day breakfast. Best I’ve had in years, amazing friendly atmosphere

Sometimes it’s about context. I was in Edinburgh for the fringe. My pal and I had a hotel 5 minutes from The Haven, on the waterfront. I looked at Unilocal to see what was around and saw great reviews for the Haven. It opened as we walked up. The selection is great, I had eggy bread and bacon, my friend had the full vegetarian breakfast. The décor was quirky, old timey, bohemian, all things I love in a breakfast and coffee place. The prices were good. The food delicious. They served syrup with their breakfast items. I feel like I don’t see syrup often enough in my UK breakfast options. I’m American so I’m used to syrup being an option at all breakfast places. Lastly the staff were delightful. Highly recommended. As I said context was important and we were further out in the ‘burgh than I’d been previously and therefore it was great to find this gem out by the water.

You have to know about this place as its off the beaten track. I will start with the negatives as it won’t take me very long. Its outlook is not great as its looking on to a big factory type building and it is not a great place to take kids. Not because they don’t welcome kids it’s just not a place where kids can get up and move/​run around which my 2 year old inevitably wants to do. There is also little or no space for buggies. They did however very quickly offer me a high chair for my baby. That said everything else about this place is great. Quirky/​kitsch décor, great home baking (really great) and the menu is simple straightforward with straightforward prices, staff very pleasant. We got a friendly farewell on departure. I will definitely return here but maybe just an adults only visit.

Went to The Haven this morning with my friend for her birthday brunch.
we both had the full breakfast, my friend had the original version and I went for the veggie option, which was amazing. Who knew veggie haggis was actually a thing and quite yummy. The service was fast and friendly. Their apple & elderberry juice was delicious.
the only reason I didn’t give 5 stars is that it was a bit cold inside. Other than that: THUMBS UP!

Anyone who is a Newhaven local is a fan of The Haven (from what I can gather). As Claire C mentions, it fills a much needed hole in the area of a local, independent café that does good lunch options, cakes and coffee. Whether you’re a local in the area needing pancakes for Sunday brunch, a climber who’s finished a good day at Alien Rock, or have just popped down this lovely little seaside spot for a mini day trip, The Haven will surely serve you well.
I’ve heard glorious things about the brunch pancakes at the weekend. The cake looks mighty fine too. And the sandwich I had was really quite wonderful: huge amounts of filling, and unusual fillings too. My only irk is that the flat white they served me wasn’t’ a flat white: it was a very big, milky latte. I order flat whites because I don’t want a lot of milk — so just call it what it is, a latte. But it’s just a labeling error really. Just be warned if you’re not a fan of the milkyness.
If you’re in the Newhaven area, The Haven is definitely worth stopping into for a sandwich, coffee, cake, or weekend brunch. And there’s a lovely view of a lighthouse looking out over the harbour too. Newhaven is just lovely.

It’s not my first visit to the spot and it’s certainly would be my last. There are few and far between cafes down here that really scream come and eat. Like Jenny L and Claire C mention, this café really is a gem in the Newhaven area.
I can vouch for the breakfasts and the chicken avocado ciabatta as well as the cakes and artisian roasts coffee. Mr C’s had the breakfasts and the leek and stilton soup soup as well as the hot chocolates and all are delicious!
It’s got such a quirky vibe too with it’s eclectic collection of antiques including a old record player and typewriter.

I definitely like this place. Located in a bit of a retail and eateries vacuum, the Haven fills a much needed hole in the local area.
Seems to be pretty focused on breakfast and lunch, which does the job for me fine. I ordered the pancakes with maple syrup and bacon for a very respectable £4. It arrived in good time, was hot, tasty and filling. Just what you need for a lunch on a Monday! The pancakes were thick and fluffy, just how I like them, and there was plenty maple syrup to go with.
The cakes looked epic, so I opted for a caramel shortbread to take away. I think it was home-​made and the side of a small door stop. Yum!
Décor-​wise, it’s ye old thrift shop style, with old gramophones, mismatched furniture and bunting. Shelves are brimming with knick knacks and odds and sods and there’s plenty to have a nose at.
Only minor gripe is that the place was quite cold and didn’t feel cosy. I had to keep my jacket on for the entire meal. Brr!

Jolly British and great value…
We read about this place in The Week and thought we must visit when we were seeing friends on our spring getaway from Vermont…
So overall the all day breakfast was good value, but I felt there was perhaps a little too much grease on some items, and the bacon could have been of a better quality… but I am a bacon snob and also an member of the British Sausage Appreciation society! And prey you may think what does he know to comment so much??? Well I spend 10 months of the year cooking fryups for our American clients at the inn I co-own…so I think I know a great breakfast when I see one! The rest of our party had combination items of scrambled eggs/​toast and bits of cooked vegetable… all seemed happy.
A point I think needs addressing is the tea… which was very poor. It lacked flavour, colour and strength. If strong tea is too strong you can weaken it… but you cannot reverse this process!
Also on the day we visited it was cold… and the café never warmed up enough, so Café Creatives invest in some extra heaters or insulate your fire door, as half of the Forth winds were blowing in through them there cracks!
The staff did seem overworked and I would agree the initial meet and greet needs sharpening up as table waiting folks seem to mill around and get in their way, and also the way of the seated clients. The overall atmosphere is very jolly and British and has an originality about it.

It seems a brave move to open a tea shop in what’s a fairly dead part of town, between Leith and Newhaven … but The Haven was jam-​packed when we first tried to go in. We had to go and do some shopping and then sneak back and grab a table when one was free.
I’m not a big coffee-​and-​cake person. More of a beer-​and-​crisps girl, me. But we just really felt like a sweet treat today, so cake it was. And what cake! The carrot cake was moist and tasty and delicious. But Jason’s cake put in the shade… literally.
I suppose you can’t make an ‘Elvis’ cake and then serve dainty servings. And this was a whopper. Three layers of chocolate, banana and peanut butter cake, sandwiched together with lashings of icing … even Jason couldn’t finish it, and once I’d tasted it, I had to restain myself from polishing off the rest.
Yum. I’m off to lie on the couch and dream sugary dreams now.

The Haven is a tale of two stories. On one side, delicious ‘Taste of Haven’ — a rather tasty, sleep for an hour after consumption, tray bake treat that the Silent Reviewer and I shared. On the other side, was the paninis and service.
We were in a rush. The SR wanted fish and chips from Porto and Fi, I, looking at the time, said, no — let’s go to the café/​deli on the corner and grab a quick sandwich.
This was anything but a quick sandwich. I read a whole magazine in the time it took to make our sandwiches, for the ladies behind the counter to flirt with and serve other customers, and do the washing up. It wasn’t busy and there was only one other customer I recall actually being served anything in the entire time we were there. The paninis, once made were barely warm (lightly toasted, not burnt which is of course a good thing), and really made me wonder why it took so long to put some mozzarella, tomato and pesto in a bun. The time we were hoping to save was hopelessly lost, with us waiting a good 30mins+ for a sandwich to be toasted. While I enjoy a nice long relaxing lunch, when I want a takeaway, it is because that option isn’t open to me. The Haven is nice, but I find the menu limited and service just too slow for me to want to make a detour again.
Still, nice baked goods, can’t deny that.

I love this place… It’s dangerously close to my studio at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop. They have so many treats– from home-​made soups to BIG slices of cake, to coke-​floats and toasted cibatta sandwiches…
The lovely lady who runs it (I don’t know her name!) is super friendly, and always recognises me, when I pop in :)
I would happy walk out of my way to go to this café, and is a VERY nice post Alien Rock 1 post climbing lunch/​snack stop (only a 5 minute walk away)!

The Haven opened its doors just a few months ago, and seems to be progressing nicely, attracting a varied crowd. It’s very neatly turned out and serves good breakfast, brunch and lunch options. It served me very nicely as a refuelling stop on one of my long walks around the city.
Overall, we said: «The Haven is a lovely little oasis of calm. It’s friendly and welcoming, with good coffee and nicely prepared breakfasts. I’ll pop back a little later in the day, soon, to see how their soup measures up. Based on this short visit, I’m optimistic it’ll be good.»

The Haven is a new café located on Anchorfield (buses 10,11, 7,16) on the corner of Hawthornvale.
Handy location for those using the nearby Asda or taking a walk down the harbour. Wide variety of tasty treats on offer, including; home made cakes and soups, specials, all day breakfasts and freshly made sandwiches with a range of fillings. Staff are friendly and accommodating and the mixture of wooden tables and shabby-​chic cosy chairs works in its favour. I found it to be a warm and informal place to meet up with friends for a spot of lunch. The café was child friendly, with colouring sheets for the kids and child options on the menu. I highly recommend their half-​sandwich and soup option, where I was treated to a delicious hearty home-​made soup that filled me up nicely for the day.
Their all-​day breakfasts and pancakes are also worth mentioning due to the positive reactions from my friends.
I’ll definitely be returning, the lure of their tasty home-​made cake is too strong!