The Cafe Royal Bar, Edinburgh

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 14^th October 2025 - rating: 4
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