A vibrant, buzzy, award winning Italian family run restaurant in one of Edinburgh’s most beautiful rooms. This former banking hall is modelled on a Florentine Palazzo and delivers everything you want from a fabulous, authentic contemporary Italian restaurant.  They source produce direct from the markets in Italy and change the menus every 6 weeks with the seasons.

Homemade pasta is made fresh every morning with delicious Puglian focaccia. This food is perfect for sharing. A fun, informal and very special family restaurant, brimming with fresh ingredients and Italian passion. Bellissimo!

Victor and Carina have selected décor that is inspiring: calm soft pewter grey with wonderful rococo feature walls. Candles and banquettes, majestic pillars and immaculate table settings – this venue has style in spades. The fabulous menu will give you not just a taste of Italy but a complete mind, body and taste experience of finest Italian cooking, with many of our finest local producers featured too!

They are keen supporters of all that is Slow, creating a kitchen garden for sustainable produce for both here and their sister restaurants The Scottish Cafe & Restaurant and Cannonball.

The kitchen garden is fully organic and produces food and table decorations for about 9 months of the year.  Victor’s seven hives; with 30,000 bees per hive, adds a very positive contribution to the environment.. and honey.

“We removed smoked salmon from our last menu.  We’ve been fazing this over the last few months.   We’ve not sold any fresh salmon for several years due to the environmental challenges associated with the Scottish salmon industry but we felt smoked salmon was an essential heritage ingredient that celebrated so much of the Scottish tradition of smoking and preserving.  Our customers love it, especially visitors and breakfast guests, so we’ve been reluctant to change.  We’re now selling steelhead smoked sea trout. We believe we’ve made the best choice that meets customer demand and provides a more sustainable alternative.  Importantly it’s supporting a heritage skill, it’s allowing us to serve a similar style of product and I can confirm it’s delicious.”

Some photos © Contini