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Reviewing milestone with Komakino
on the Pub Forum
Image posted by Will Larter
Submitted on Sunday, 12th October 2025
With picture contributions to 12618 other pubs
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Detail Pages
The Cafe Royal Bar, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
EH2 2AA
Served areas
Reviews of The Cafe Royal Bar (Average Rating: 7½ of 10) see review guidelines
Old Boots left this review about The Cafe Royal Bar
January 2026 update
Only two beers on, not particularly good either, usual struggle to get near enough to the counter to get served. Swerving the Stewart beer I had a sad MoR Songs of Haze. Bit of a downfall for a previously excellent pub / tourist trap. Still very popular and busy, stick to the Guildford is my advice.
19 January 2014
Warning live review
Another Classic Edinburgh pub I haven't reviewed. I had to visit as a local landlord visited and found fault with every beer on sale here, well I've just had a faultless pint of Broughton Dark Dunster so he got a particularly bad day or ......
There's a couple of the ever reliable Kelburn and an EPA from the Edinburgh Brewing Co so I might just try that before the Abbotsford. My mistake it's a 3.4% so maybe I'll save it for breakfast . Anyone mentioned the 40+ malts?
On 27th January 2026
- no rating submitted
[User has posted 3859 recommendations about 3526 pubs]
David Walton left this review about The Cafe Royal Bar
Visited 05/11/25
Cask was Pentland IPA, Backing Blue session IPA and Jack Back session IPA all from Stewart Brewing, the Gloaming 80/- and the Bonnie & Blonde pale ale both from Loch Lomond brewing, the Royal Mile IPA from Broughton, the Jeely Piece double APA and the Songs of Haze hazy IPA both from MoR. The keg offering was Asahi, Stewart's Lager and Stewart's 80/- both from Stewart Brewing, the Edinburgh Pale from the Beer Factory, Thistly Cross cider, Guinness, the Pilot Blond, Paolozzi lager, the Lawless Village IPA from Bellfield, the Peach Melba Sour from Pilot, Estrella Galicia and the lager from Innis & Gunn.
Another grand pub, but not as opulent as I had worked myself up to experience - here was me thinking Trump's gold laden remodelled Oval Office in an old school Edinburgh pub and Oyster restaurant! The venue is tiled with an ornate, but not opulent island bar with tall stool seating around the bar counter. High painted ceiling - OK a fair amount of gilding thereon and around the tops of the walls between the grand windows. To the left of the entrance (mind the step down immediately inside the entrance if you are looking for the opulence), a series of semi-circular booth style tables with leather seating in the windows and regular chairs the other side thereof. Nice art deco style globe lighting suspended from the ceiling and a fair quota of typical houseplants. In front of the entrance and along an ornate wooden mirrored partition screening off the formal restaurant and stretching to the rear wall the other side of the bar counter was a line of tall round tables each with two tall, backed stools occupied by elderly ladies doing lunch. The rear (from the entrance side) wall has large tile art framed works of first division inventors (think Watt, Stephenson, Faraday, Caxton etc) either side of an impressive wooden fire surround with ornate mirror above. There was a line of tall tables along this wall also. Whilst a good venue with decent beer and plenty to look at felt like it was a distance second in the race against the Guildford Arms a minute walk away.
On 8th November 2025
- rating: 7
[User has posted 942 recommendations about 935 pubs]
Will Larter left this review about The Cafe Royal Bar
I've been in the Cafe Royal a couple of times before, and found it busy and crowded. This latest visit, on a Friday shortly before my 2pm train from Waverley, was no exception. On another much busier occasion I can remember being in a bit of a crush by the hand pumps, but this time there was just a couple sitting on stools by the counter, who generously made room for me to photograph the six pump clips. I spotted a duplicate set around the corner, so went around there to choose my beers: Mor Cobble, an 80/- which was a bit strong at 5% abv, having "... layers of rich malts, combining flavours of blackcurrant and caramel with dried fruit and roasted nuts" according to the brewery's Facebook description of their own beer; or a rather tired and lacklustre beer, the victim of its own excess strength when fighting for attention among five other beers in a pub where hardly anyone is drinking cask beers (NBSS 2, £7/pint). My other half pint was from Broughton Brewery in the Borders, but I had to Google it to find out, as the pump clip just said Murray's Pale Ale 3.6%, so probably a recreation of a long lost beer. This was a little better, though green instead of stale (NBSS 2.5, £6.70/pint). The other four beers included another 80/-, this time from Loch Lomond, and three from Stewart Brewing, whose beers need careful handling in my experience and I wouldn't even consider them in a place like this. The Cafe Royal is a beautiful building with some amazing art works on the walls, but I'll not bother coming here again. For pictures, there's the National Gallery of Scotland; for pubs, there are many better than this - one just around the corner, in fact: the Guildford Arms.
On 14th October 2025
- rating: 4
[User has posted 4598 recommendations about 4212 pubs]
View more reviews of The Cafe Royal Bar (16)
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- Official site of The Cafe Royal Bar - www.caferoyaledinburgh.com
- Facebook page of The Cafe Royal Bar - www.facebook.com
- CAMRA WhatPub :: The Cafe Royal Bar - whatpub.com
- Historic Pub Interiors - pubheritage.camra.org.uk
Pub Details
Pub details supplied by members of this site to the best of their knowledge. Please check with pub directly before making a special trip.
- Accommodation : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Bar Billiards : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Beer Garden : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- CAMRA Discount : Yes - 10%. - last updated 19 November 2024 by Tris C
- Car Park : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Child Friendly : Yes - restaurant only - last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Darts : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Function Room : Yes last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Hot Food : Yes last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Jukebox : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Karaoke : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Live Music : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Live TV Sports : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Micropub : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Pinball : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Pool Table : No last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- Real Ale : Yes last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
- WiFi : Yes last updated 25 January 2016 by Quinno _
