Tolbooth Tavern

A fine pub, with very friendly staff and heartily decorated. Grabbed me a Guinness here, and my lass’s chardonnay was pretty damn fine too.

Cool ambience and history here. Bangers and mash was flavorful and hearty. Service to have order taken and receive tab was a little slow. Food arrived quickly upon ordering though. Two young men were running the upstairs dining section alone working their tails off. I left a 30% tip because they were working hard and still very pleasant.

Like most other reviews here, I was immediately immersed in the charm of the place. Good selection of beers and a warm velvety feeling inside, if one could use those words to describe a bar.

This spot used to be a prison. It looks like a spot Sherlock Homie would put Moriarty in, back in the day… no joke.
Love the traditional pub décor.
Love the music.
Love the cask ales.
The barkeep was funny.
Love this spot on the Royal Mile.
It’s tough to miss so you should def hit it. I mean, if you ever make it outta NYC.
Suckas.

I like this little tavern.
So I’ve been here a couple of times now and I have to say that I enjoy their selection of Scottish beers. They have a good selection of beers that you can’t just get at every pub. The bartender was a nice gal who let me sample a few of them so I could decide which one I wanted.
The pub itself has seating in front and more restaurant-​style seating in back, just up the stairs. The times I came were both on Friday, once in the late afternoon and once in the evening. Both times I came the place was pretty quiet, except a man playing a guitar in front during the evening.
One thing to note, being in a more touristy area I expected to see more tourists there. However, the only people I saw during my visits were locals, which tells me that this place must be a pretty good place to eat and drink.
Overall, I think this is a great place to bring friends for a meal or a drink. The building has a cool and interesting history, the staff is nice, and their Scottish beers are all excellent. I definitely would recommend coming here and will do so again myself.

Excellent lunch spot for a pint and some pie and mash! I would definitely suggest the steak and ale pie!

My family and I were staying directly across the road and we stopped in for dinner on a Friday evening. I’m certainly glad we did!
The tavern was almost empty when we arrived, so we were a bit nervous about how good our food would be. The lower level is the bar, and you walk through the establishment to the back to get to the dining area.
The menu is a good collection of traditional Scottish meals. My brother and dad ordered the steak and ale pie, and I was adventurous and ordered the tower of haggis. What I like about this place is that they recommend beer pairings with all of their meals. My brother and I ordered the Flying Scotsman, which (I believe) is an ESB.
We all loved the food. I had never had haggis before, and it was served in a tower sandwiched between neeps (turnips) and mash. Delicious. The service was a little slow, but they made up for it with the quality of food and the hospitality.
Yet another great place in Edinburgh! Stop in if you are on this end of the Mile.

The best fish and chips I have ever had in my life. The portion of the dessert is huge! If I visit the castle next time, I will definitely come again. Price and servers are friendly too!

Admittedly my first — but definitely one of the best Haggis I will ever have! Nice little pub, average interior, highly recommended, though… fair prices.

Solid pub, good food. Super friendly staff! Recommend. We split appetizers as we were pub crawling, but didn’t make any difference in the way we were treated. Good choice for pints and a light supper.

We wandered in after a day strolling around the Royal Mile and Edinburgh’s city center.
We were attracted by the exterior and learned that this building and location has great history, which definitely appealed to us.
The pints of ale were refreshing. We had a light snack — we split an appetizer (Scottish salmon) and an order of Haggis, neeps & tatties since it IS the national dish of Scotland and we were visiting from the states.
The haggis was tasty, but didn’t have anything to benchmark it against.
While a resident ghost is said to knock things off the walls, we didn’t have a paranormal experience but I did taste the haggis for the remainder of the day (as it kept repeating on me).

Chouette ambiance. Pas en plein centre donc un peu plus calme et plus facile pour trouver de la place. Possibilité de manger haggis ou fish and chips.

We were in need of a drink, post climbing up to Arthur’s seat. I had a cider, but there were plenty of beers to choose from. It looks super pub like, and was reasonably busy in mid-​afternoon. The pub is located amidst a bunch of touristy shops and things.

Bön, c’est un pub et un restaurant que j’affectionne. Pourquoi? Dans la simplicité c’est exactement ce que je cherchais. Pas de chichi, c’est ici que vous pourrez déguster un bon fish & chips ou du haggis avec pommes de terre et navets. Bön rapport qualité prix.

I’ve only been here five days, yet I’ve stopped by this place three times.
Why, you ask?
Well first off, they serve Caledonian 80, which is my new favorite.
Then there is the ambiance, which I immediately loved.
Superb, awesome, old stone building.
Sure it’s on the Royal Mile, which itself seems to be a bunch of touristy trappings, but this place definitely had some locals chillin’; aka flava.
In fact, I think I was the only American, and that’s fine by me.
They have Wifi. I just love the fact that a place that looks so ancient allows me to upload my snaps of Arthur’s Seat to Instagram!
Lastly, the location is just that, a great place to reward yourself with a pint after trekking around Holyrood Park.
It’s all good.

Excellent Food, good beers, friendly staff, highly recommended for meals or just a drink.
can’t fault this place at all.

Fantastic ambiance, but the food is extremely average pub fare. Still, it’s really cool to have a pint in a tavern that actually used to collect tolls and taxes. Like so many places in Edinburgh, history literally seeps from the walls.

Stumbled into this pub/​restaurant after a long afternoon of sightseeing. Very welcoming staff rapidly brought our drinks while we studied the menu.
Typical pub– grub menu.
Definitely the best chips I have tasted for years.
Persuaded to have dessert and out came the biggest portions of sticky toffee pudding and chocolate fudge cake I have ever seen.
Definitely worth a visit.

I only ventured into the Tolbooth Tavern because Bene’s Fish Shop was closed and I was so distraught about it I needed a drink and fast. I looked up and saw the lights of heaven shining on this pub across the street.
My partner and I ventured in and made ourselves at home. The lovely pub staff were very friendly and chatted with us for a bit. They assured us Bene’s would open shortly, as it did, and I cheered up immensely (due to both the good news as well as the good company).
The drinks were typically priced, so no cheap booze, but the crowd seemed like locals (one seemed like a regular and brought her dog into the pub) and, like I said, the staff made it very comfortable.
We stayed for a few drinks and then left so we weren’t there for very long at all but the Tolbooth Tavern has proved memorable and I would enjoy a trip back, especially pre– or post-Bene’s.

When I was a lad growing up in Falkirk, the Tolbooth Tavern was the only pub that would let us in at the tender age of 15. Unlike the Edinburgh version, disembodied spirits of the dead weren’t all you had to fear, but also «Mental» Martin, a local lad with very large fists and a personality disorder. Any chance meeting with him in The Tolbooth would result in you becoming his temporary «best mate» for the night, until he forgot who you were and things got a lot more terrifying.
Thankfully old Martin doesn’t appear in Edinburgh’s Tolbooth Tavern, instead it’s a gentle mix of locals and tourists, in far more tasteful and character-​laden décor than many of it’s horrific competitors further up The Royal Mile.
From the outside it looks like possibly the cosiest place in the world. It isn’t, but it’s still pretty cosy.

The Canongate is a fantastic location for a traditional pub. The old stone Gothic buildings create a real atmosphere. The Tolbooth Tavern is carved into such a row old stone buildings, with lots of wynds and closes. It’s perfect for an ambient visit to the city, to get a feel for the historic Edinburgh.
The cosy Tolbooth Tavern is on the site of the old Tolbooth which was basically the administrative centre for Canongate, which in the 1590s when it was built, was a separate burgh from Edinburgh. The building has been the Tavern since the early 1800s and was refurbished in the 1870s, from which its current appearance can be dated.
Inside the pub has a traditional aesthetic. It’s a large pub, which stretches back further than you would realise just looking at the exterior. The back of the pub is used for dining (which is pretty good quality pub food), with the bar at the front. There’s also a function room which can be hired out. Quite a lot of tourists come here which is a mixed blessing, you certainly don’t feel like you’re intruding. Prices are average to just above average for both drink and food.
As for that famous ghost, apparently its presence can be most felt at the back of the pub, so watch out while dining!

A great place to stop in for a pint on a chilly Edinburgh night. This building used to be the auld tolbooth jail and where those coming or going from Edinburgh would have to pay a tax. This building hails from the 1500s, but is decorated in 1700s décor with amazing and odd wooden carved gargoyles that hang from the shelves above your heads.
They say there are ghosts that haunt the old Tolbooth Tavern and throw things off the walls. I didn’t experience any otherworldly activity, but there were two chaps who appeared to be academics talking over a pint about Scotland’s demographics when their conversation also turned to that of personal ghost stories.
The Tolbooth serves coffee and breakfast in the morning and lunch and dinner later in the day. They have a sign outside saying they are not licensed for children under 5-​years-​old, just so you know!