Yeni Meze Bar

I used to enjoy the odd trip to Nargile, but it’s replacement, Yeni, is a fine choice. If you check out Jen Y.‘s review, it looks like the restaurant is one and the same, but rebranded. We had the pre-​theatre menu and were spoiled for choice. From light spinach filo cigarello rolls, to some darn tasty shakshuka (a Catriona C. favourite), vegetables in garlic yoghurt sauce to baked falafel. With an accompanying plate of pita, we struggled to finish our main, let alone finish up with dessert. I’d definitely return for seconds though.

We last ate here some ¹⁶⁄₁₇ years ago when it had a different name & we were happy to see it still operating upon our recent visit to Edinburgh — the original Turkish restaurant however was a level far above what we recently experienced.
The food was okay — nothing particularly spectacular & thus we’re unlikely to return.

Ah tapas. Loads and loads of tiny food. My favourite things. Pretty much always experiencing ‘food envy’ every time I eat out as I find it impossible to choose just one dish from a menu, tapas is the perfect remedy to tackle this. I’d never tried Greek tapas before, so this was a pleasant first.
Dining on a Saturday evening at 5:30, our party of 10 made good use of the excellent pre theatre option — three tapas plus dessert for £14.95. I however chose from the a la carte as I absolutely had to choose the grilled halloumi, which was not on the pre theatre menu. I also close the hummus kavurma (with lamb) which was absolutely amazing! What’s more, baskets of hot pitta bread is complimentary, so there are no more hidden costs. My dish however (falafel) was disappointing; very dry and there wasn’t much taste at all.
We also ordered the prosecco at £21 which was superb as well as reasonably priced.
There is so much more I’d love to try on the menu so I will definitely keep this one in mind next time I visit the capital.

Minimalistic, like Jenny L said, perhaps lacking in personality, but then I came here for the food so decided to overlook this minor detail… The location is good, just off the hustle and bustle of Princes Street so a good option for local and tourists alike.
I came in yesterday for the £9.95 lunch mezze deal. My partner and I naively ordered almost the same things and ended up with way too much hummus and falafel and not enough in the way of vegetables. There was plenty of pita bread (served warm) and the mixed mediterranean vegetables with yogurt were pretty tasty. The food was fine but for me personally really lacked garlic and seasoning. The hummus was creamy and fresh-​tasting but pretty bland. The price was fine given the portions but I left feeling a little unsatisfied by the flavours.
Given the variety in Edinburgh I would probably not return here in a hurry to give it a second chance.

Yeni’s is a real diamond in Edinburgh’s food scene. The service is wonderful and the food is sublime!
I come here with my mum whenever she visits as it’s her all time favourite. We order practically everything on the menu and savour every morsel (and this is a woman who is the epitome of self restraint when it comes to food). You never feel rushed so you can sit back and wade through the delectable assortment of dishes at your own pace, and it’s all served with piping hot pitta bread to mop up the scrumptious juices.
My personal favourites are the meze sausage, calamari, mixed roast vegetables and the lamb kebabs with that authentic Turkish rice that takes me back to a particularly magnificent holiday in Istanbul. Finished off with their Baklava and a cup of steaming apple tea. Perfection.
Give Yeni’s a try, you will not be disappointed.
Lauren x

I was really impressed with Yeni after visiting for an incredibly good value lunch on a fairly busy Saturday afternoon.
Three meze dishes for less than a tenner per person. And don’t let the idea of meze plates some other Mediterranean restaurants serve fool you, these are very generous portions! Despite that, there is no compromise on the quality of the food. Everything ordered was delicious and full of awesome flavours. The highlights for me were the tender, juicy chicken kebabs with that fresh-​off-​the-​grill taste, the ‘Ezme’ A tomato salsa type dish, probably the best a tomato has ever tasted! And the Shaksuka; sauteed aubergine with tomato, onion and garlic that was yet another taste sensation.
There’s a good selection of drinks as well. Reasonably priced wine and beer with soft drinks and that great Turkish coffee that could probably fuel a diesel engine.
Inside is bright, modern and clean. It’s a fairly small place but doesn’t feel at all claustrophobic. Staff are nice and friendly, courteous and happy to take the time to chat. Another positive is the fact that there is a great variety of options for those with food intolerances, veggies, vegans and meat eaters alike.
Yeni ticks a lot of boxes; it offers a great taste of the Med at a very reasonable price in a great location. I look forward to returning!

This was our first time at Yeni and we were very pleasantly surprised. We had a mix of hot and cold Meze plates. The bruschetta was excellent as were the traditional Turkish dishes like hummus and grilled strips of cheese (i forget the name). The service was excellent and the prices low!
This was the best meal we’ve had in Edinburgh. Don’t miss it

Went in on a last-​minute night free for dinner as the rest of Hanover St was busting full and ordered 7 items between 2 of us and some wine. Generally quite a deflating experience…
The chicken wings were really tasty, had proper good flavour and crunchy outside but they were no bigger than my thumb and mostly legs, not wings. Small but good. A ribeye salad was good and tasty with fresh herbs, the only dish containing fresh herbs actually. The hummus with lamb was void of flavour and we had to add a tonne of salt and lemon juice to make it decent. We also had prawns which were, again, tiny. I always get so disappointed with these wee tiny prawns — if you’re emulating a holiday in Greece or Turkey type meal then you should use better produce than that… Anyway, the buttery, lemony, garlicky sauce they were swimming in came in handy for adding flavour to the other dishes that were bland. The thin– sliced chicken on top of soggy pitta with tomato sauce was very passata-​from-​a-​carton tasting. The prawn butter improved it. Pitta garlic bread with cheese was lovely hot but after 5 minutes become inedible. And the fatoush was terrible, worst I’ve ever had.
Service was ok, not slow or anything but lacked a sparkle of some kind. We had the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu and the bill for 2 came to £70, which is really quite steep for very plain nibbly food in a stark, uninteresting environment and we were only there an hour! I guess you takes your chances in city centre on a busy Saturday night…
All in all, nothing special going on here. Won’t be back or recommending.

I’ve been to Yeni several times now, both in small groups and a large party. The atmosphere is charming with good music. The staff is very attentive and helpful. The meze menu is full of delicious items. All the ones I’ve tried have been great. I’ve particularly enjoyed the Humus Kavurma (humus with lamb), Halloumi, and Dolma. As a group, we got the fix-​price option. They assured us we would not be hungry by the end and they were right! The Iskander was absolutely fabulous.

Meze Me Full and Call Me Ikram
This place is great, really, really good Turkish food, at a great price with top notch service. We got booked in over the weekend of the Calcutta Cup, a table for 4 is hard to come by on those weekends– and my mum managed to book it on the day!
A few drinks beforehand in one of the many awesome bars on Hannover Street, and empty tummies were in need of satisfaction. Friendly welcome, don’t be put off by the guy at the door handing our Hummus Canapés, it’s not a sign of desperation as the place was half full and there were a lot of regulars.
The menu is huge, so we were quite relieved when the lady came over and said that they do ‘set menu’ for £20 a head and bring over a selection of stuff — which is taking the pain out of group eating in a Meze restaurant — ok we will take 4 of those, and 2 bottles of red wine thanks.
The cold stuff came super quick, plenty of warm pitta bread to mop up copious amounts of hummus, sliced sausage, aubergine and tomato and other dishes which I can’t remember. Hot stuff started coming before we were done there, with calamari, chicken, feta and spinach pastries and hot vegetable dishes also. I know what most of these are called in Greek, but not in Turkish, sorry
The finale was the main course, and we got a platter of succulent chicken kebabs, as well as a huge pitta stuffed with freshly cooked lamb — that really was 10 out of 10.
Ok, so why isn’t this 5 star, because it wasn’t the most amazing Mediterranean food I have ever it had, its strong 4 star, with definite 5 star elements. My dad started speaking nonsense to the manager who gave him a voucher for a comp bottle of wine next time we are in — thanks Dad, seeing as you live in Aberdeen, I’ll be taking that.
Boom!

We booked a table on a voucher for 2 people and they were happy to use the voucher for 4 people.
The deal was for 12 ‘tasting sizes’ containing of 6 cold and 6 warm Meze.
In addition we ordered extra fried calamari, tzaziki and an artichoke with dry roasted tomatoes.
It was all a bit of a mixed bag as each one of us preferred different dishes.
My personal favourite was the calamari, which was nicely crispy outside and soft on the inside (and not chewy like you get in some other places).
The ambiance is a bit bare, but the music created a great compensation for that. We noticed that we were humming along while enjoying the dishes in front. There is a good level of noise as we didn’t have to over shout the music either.
Service was very friendly, but a little chaotic. It took us 3 requests to actually get the bill to our table. They closed the kitchen at 9pm so we decided to have coffee and dessert elsewhere. That was actually fine with me as I didn’t fancy any of the dessert on the menu.
So in all it was a good experience and there were some definite highlights, but it lacked that cohesion and finesse to make it stand out.

Set off on a sunny Monday evening with an itison voucher in hand to give this place a whirl and we werent disappointed. On a arrival we were greeted by a very friendly waitress and the place itself was bright and modern. The menu for the voucher was similair to the main menu only excluding the mini mains, so I cannot comment on those.
We opted for:
Cold meze
humus, Shaksuka, Dolma, olives
Hot Meze
Calamari, Sucuk, Spinach Borek
Nerellom Ascalese Arpeggio Sicilian wine
Everything was really nice and the wine was reasonably priced. The stand out dishes that made us discuss a repeat visit were the calamari, humus, Shaksuka and Sucuk. Even the pita breads were really good. Wish I had taken some photos as everything was reallly nicely presented.
Could not fault a dish from the hummous to the pitta breads, which normlly for me in meze/​tapas etc theres something that is a bit weird or seems have come from a tin. Never a fan of eating anywhere around George Street as I seem to have had a lot of medicore and occassionally expensive meals, but this place is great.

I went looking for Nargile and found Yeni in its place. But, after speaking with the waitress, it turns out Yeni is owned by the same people who owned Nargile. They have simply rebranded, and reopened under a different name, to highlight a similar but updated menu. The main change being that they now individually mark all mezze dishes as Gluten Free, Dairy Free, or Vegan. Having several friends who fit every description, this is a good update to see.
Compared to other Turkish restaurants I’ve been to, it may not have the dark wooded, colourful, candelit interior and atmosphere. It’s very New Town and George Street –sleek, pollished, minimalist, perhaps I’d go so far to say it’s lacking in personality?
But that’s just the decoration. The staff were very friendly and chatty (hence how I discovered it is owned by Nargile).
The food was also really quite delicious. I don’t know how it compares to traditional Turkish mezze, but I really enjoyed mine. The lunch deal of 3 mezze for £9.90 that runs every day Mon — Sat (except Sunday, when they’re not open) was really fantastic. I took home a doggy bag for dinner, the portions were so big.
The calamari was deliciously soft. The pan-​fried aubergine, whilst cold (a surprise) was delicious and the feta & spinach filo rolls were perhaps a little heavy on the pastry but still nice. The lamb kebab my dining partner ordered also looked very nom-​tastic.
I don’t think I’d go out of my way to come back to Yeni, as I love atmosphere and it just feels a little minimalist. But if I were in town I’d definitely make use of the lunch deal again, and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a delicious, good value meal.
Mo’ mezze!