Abbeyhill & Easter Road, Edinburgh: football, hills and a proper local high street

Easter Road runs straight as a ruler from the foot of Calton Hill towards the docks, and that blunt geometry tells you a lot about the place. There’s no romantic wobble here, no postcard curve to soften the edges. Instead you get a working high street with a stubborn pulse: an Italian deli, a multi-roaster coffee bar, a brewery taproom, a football ground that can turn the air green by Saturday afternoon, and tenements that look as though they’ve been minding their own business for generations. Abbeyhill, just above it, feels like the neighbourhood catching its breath — older, quieter, and closer to Arthur’s Seat than most of Edinburgh can manage without a bus.

It is not trying to be Old Town theatre. Thank goodness. Abbeyhill and Easter Road are for people who want to live near the good bits of the city without paying the rent for the privilege, and who don’t mind that the glamour arrives by degrees: in a cask pint, a bakery queue, a walk up to the crags before breakfast, a Hibs scarf flung over a shoulder on matchday. The area has the pleasingly unshowy confidence of somewhere that knows exactly what it is.

What Abbeyhill & Easter Road is known for

Two things define this stretch: football and access to the hills. Easter Road stadium — “The Holy Ground” to supporters, and home to Hibernian FC since 1893 — is the anchor, a tidy four-stand bowl holding around 20,400. On match Saturdays the neighbourhood tilts towards it. Pubs fill two hours before kick-off, Easter Road thickens with green shirts, and the noise carries for blocks. The South Stand houses away fans; the Famous Five Stand behind the north goal honours the club’s legendary 1950s forward line. You do not need a ticket to understand the mood. A pint in one of the local boozers on a matchday is about as Edinburgh as it gets without a tartan shop in sight.

The other calling card is what sits at the top of the area. Holyrood Park begins just a few minutes’ walk from Abbeyhill, and the eastern approaches are the quiet ones. That matters. Instead of joining the Salisbury Crags procession with half the city, you can slip in by Dunsapie Loch and take the grassy climb to Arthur’s Seat, the extinct volcano that watches over the whole show at 251 metres. There’s a particular Edinburgh pleasure in reaching a summit before the city has properly woken up, then looking back down at the roofs and roads you’ve just left behind.

This part of town also has a strange little undercurrent of industrial memory. The Innocent Railway Tunnel, a 517-metre former railway bore under the crags, is now a graffiti-covered walking and cycling path. It is the sort of place that reminds you Edinburgh was built by workers as well as walkers, by people who needed to get somewhere rather than simply admire it. That practical streak still runs through Abbeyhill and Easter Road. It’s in the tenements, the colonies, the shops, the pubs, the football, the fact that the neighbourhood feels lived in rather than curated.

Where to eat & drink

The food story here has changed quickly, and in a way that feels earned rather than airlifted in. The headline arrival is Montrose at 1 Montrose Terrace, the second venture from the Radford family behind Timberyard. Upstairs, there’s a focused set menu in a room of seven tables; downstairs, a wine bar pours a fully organic, small-producer list alongside unfussy small plates. Devilled eggs with trout roe. Panisse with salsa verde and anchovies. The building itself was one of Edinburgh’s first public houses, which gives the whole enterprise a nice sense of continuity: old bones, modern intent.

For daytime, the strip does very well. Twelve Triangles at 22–24 Easter Road is the local outpost of the city’s cult slow-ferment sourdough bakery, and it behaves exactly as such a place should: pastries, focaccia sandwiches, a genuinely good Basque cheesecake, and a food store with East Coast Cured charcuterie and take-home sourdough pizza bases on Fridays and Saturdays. It is the sort of bakery where you go in for one thing and leave carrying enough provisions to pretend you’re organised.

Polentoni at 38 Easter Road is a small Italian deli run by Franco from Padova, and it has the pleasing directness of somewhere that knows the point of a deli is to feed you properly. Focaccia sandwiches, fresh pasta, cannoli, northern-Italian coffee — no fuss, no performance, just the sort of lunch that makes you wonder why you ever settled for a limp supermarket roll. A few doors down, Little Fitzroy at 46 Easter Road brings a Melbourne-styled multi-roaster coffee bar into the mix, rotating guest beans and stocking vegan bakes. It is the neighbourhood’s caffeine relay point: locals, dog walkers, parents, people with laptops, all of them making the same quiet calculation about whether they need another coffee or merely the idea of one.

Red Kite Café at 7–8 Cadzow Place is the brunch move in Abbeyhill proper. Its Turkish eggs — poached over garlicky yoghurt with warm chilli butter — have a cult following, and the whole menu can go gluten-free. That’s the kind of practical generosity that wins a neighbourhood over. No drama, just breakfast done with enough care to make you linger.

Then there’s Herringbone Abbeyhill on Royal Terrace Gardens, occupying a former public toilet block on the corner of London Road. That sounds like a joke until you see the raised outdoor terrace, which is one of the best in the east of the city. It’s a 120-cover bar-restaurant now, and the old civic awkwardness of the building only adds to its charm. Edinburgh has always liked a reuse project; this one wears it well.

Going out

Nightlife here means pubs, not clubs — and that is a blessing. Bellfield Brewery Taproom at 46 Stanley Place is the standout: Scotland’s first dedicated gluten-free brewery, pouring fifteen taps of its own and guest beers in a room with a log burner and a heated beer garden of barrels and beer-hall benches. Food comes from a rotating cast of local pop-ups. It’s a short walk from the Scottish Parliament and one of the area’s real destinations, the sort of place where a pint turns into a second before you’ve noticed the weather has gone from “bracing” to “absolutely not”.

Old Eastway Tap at 218 Easter Road is Cross Borders Brewery’s second pub, and it does what a good neighbourhood tap should do: four cask lines, sixteen craft-keg lines, hot dogs, mac and cheese, and a name borrowed from the old Eastway cinema. It’s straightforward in the best way, a place that understands that not every evening needs a concept. Sometimes you just want a pint and something cheesy.

For character over craft, Safari Lounge at 21 Cadzow Place is a former Victorian railway-station bar reborn with leopard-print benches, real ale, world beers and a playful kitchen doing loaded dogs and bao. It has the sort of slightly ungovernable charm that makes a local feel like a local. The Regent at 2 Montrose Terrace is Edinburgh’s long-running gay real-ale pub, all comfy sofas, Deuchars IPA on handpump, rotating guest ales and one of the friendliest welcomes in the city. It is the sort of place that doesn’t need to advertise its warmth; the room does the work for it.

On matchdays, the classic pre-match pint still belongs to The Windsor at the top of Leith Walk on Elm Row, a century-old traditional pub with beer mirrors, brass and wood. There’s a reason these old football pubs survive. They know how to hold a crowd without making a fuss about it.

Things to do / what to see

The single best thing to do here is walk up Arthur’s Seat. The quiet way from Abbeyhill is to enter Holyrood Park at its eastern edge and take the grassy climb above Dunsapie Loch, the shortest, if steepest, route to the summit. It is calmer than the Salisbury Crags path the Old Town crowds take, and early in the morning you can have the top and its 360-degree view over the Forth, the castle and the Pentlands almost to yourself. That view has a way of clarifying the city. Edinburgh looks grand from above, but it also looks busy, human, stitched together by roads and routines and people trying to get somewhere on time.

Down at park level, the Innocent Railway Tunnel is worth the detour. The 517-metre graffiti-covered former railway bore now works as a walking and cycle path, and it has the peculiar atmosphere of places that were never meant to become attractions. The walls are layered with paint and memory; the tunnel feels both urban and slightly secret. If you like your city walks with a touch of grime and history, it delivers.

At the far southern edge of Holyrood Park sit Duddingston Loch and, on The Causeway, the Sheep Heid Inn, one of Scotland’s oldest pubs, with a working skittle alley. That is not technically Abbeyhill, but it belongs in the same day out. Edinburgh is full of places where the boundary between “neighbourhood” and “ramble” is delightfully porous.

Meadowbank Sports Centre at 139 London Road is the practical counterweight to all this scenery. Reopened in 2022 after a £47m rebuild, it has an outdoor athletics track, indoor running track, climbing-height games halls, squash courts and a large gym. If you want a workout or a swim between sightseeing, this is the useful bit of the map. Not glamorous, but then neither is fitness, really.

Finally, the Palace of Holyroodhouse and its abbey ruins sit at the foot of the park, a short stroll from the top of Abbeyhill. It is one of those Edinburgh landmarks that can feel almost too formal until you realise how close it is to a neighbourhood full of dog walkers, school runs and cask pints. That contrast is half the city’s joke.

Shopping & markets

Abbeyhill and Easter Road are not trying to be a boutique district, which is part of the appeal. This is a high-street-and-specialist sort of place, where locals do the weekly shop and the good independents quietly earn their keep. Cornelius Beer & Wine at 18–20 Easter Road is the one to know if you like a drink. It’s an independent bottle shop open since 2004, with around 300 Scottish beers and as many again from around the world, plus a strong wine and spirits range. The staff motto — “if we sell it, it’s because we drink it” — is the sort of line that only works when it’s true.

Twelve Triangles doubles as a food shop, with take-home sourdough, charcuterie and pizza bases from its Easter Road store. Polentoni does the same with Italian cheeses, cured meats and chocolates alongside its café. That’s the practical beauty of the area: the places you eat are also the places you provision. It makes a neighbourhood feel less like a destination and more like somewhere with a pulse.

Beyond that, the usual city machinery is nearby. For clothing, homeware, books and the bigger supermarkets, you’re a short bus ride or a fifteen-minute walk from the top of Leith Walk and the New Town, or west to the Omni Centre and Princes Street. Abbeyhill doesn’t need to compete with that. It has a different job.

Where to stay in Abbeyhill & Easter Road

This is one of the best-value bases in central Edinburgh, and the accommodation reflects that: mostly self-catering apartments in the tenements and colonies, a scattering of small guesthouses and B&Bs, and very few hotels or chains inside the area itself. That is not a bug. It is the reason people come here when they want to spend their money on dinners, pints and time rather than marble lobbies.

If you stay up in Abbeyhill proper — around Maryfield, Montrose Terrace and the colonies — you’ll be closest to the park and quietest at night. Stay lower down Easter Road and you’ll be nearer the food-and-drink independents and the football. Either way, you’re still a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk from Waverley station and the Royal Mile. That’s the sweet spot: not on top of the sights, but close enough that you can get to them without making a production of it.

The area’s live hotels are listed directly below.

Getting around

The best way around Abbeyhill and Easter Road is on foot. It’s roughly a 10–15 minute walk from Edinburgh Waverley station and the eastern end of the Royal Mile, and the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the entrance to Holyrood Park are just a few minutes from the top of the area. You can be starting up Arthur’s Seat within five to ten minutes of your front door, which is the sort of convenience that makes a city break feel slightly smug.

For buses, London Road and Leith Walk at the top of the area are the main corridors, with Lothian services linking you quickly to the city centre and out to Leith and the shore. Edinburgh’s tram does not run through here; the nearest stop is St Andrew Square / York Place in the New Town, a 10–15 minute walk or short bus west, with trams out to Edinburgh Airport taking about 30 minutes and roughly £7 one way. Most visitors either take the tram from town or a taxi, which usually takes 25–30 minutes.

Cycling is easy and flat along Easter Road and through Holyrood Park, and the Innocent Railway Tunnel plugs you into the wider off-road path network south and east. That is very Edinburgh, really: a city where the route you take can be as interesting as the place you were trying to reach.