Olive Branch Bistro in Edinburgh, City of

Lovely relaxed bistro, great food, really good service. Great evening.

Food was amazing and was more then happy to pay the service charge. The servers were great.

The menu said “sticky coconut rice” and we were served a microwaved arborio rice with no flavour. Only one vegan option. Service is friendly but doesn’t know the menu they serve. A disappointing overpriced experience.

Really great atmosphere, a nice quiet restaurant. Great mushroom soup with the added advantage of being dairy free. Staff was super friendly and helpful :)

Delicious meals and great, fast, kind service.very tasty desserts too

very nice staff and delicious food ….with fair prices

It was a delight to revisit this restaurant with friends during the busy Fringe after an absence of several years to find that it hadn't changed. The quality, menu & drinks list remains very good & reasonably priced and we were given a warm welcome/good service throughout. Small plates are a good choice if you want to try a couple of different things and special mention to the lamb and haddock & chips for mains.

Great lunch today at the olive branch. The food,service and atmosphere and music was great. Definitely recommend 👌 👍

This restaurant has a diverse menu, we had fish and chips, risotto and an Indian curry dish. Impressively they were all good. Everyone got to have their preferred dish at the same restaurant. We did have to eat outside since it was very busy in the city but there is an overhang and a heater. Service was also great, the only issue, which is more with the rules in Scotland, is that you can smoke in the outside seating areas at restaurants, and someone did smoke which kind of sucks, I'm surprised this is still allowed around the UK and often why we avoid eating outside.

Very disappointing. Halloumi burger tasted and looked like pre bought fingers. Indian curry was ok but very small portion. All felt and tasted reheated rather than freshly made. As we got our food with 10 mins of ordering this backs that up.

Amazing food! We had the curry, fish & chips, risotto and sea trout and every dish was amazing! This restaurant is much quieter then the others on the street but it should definitely not be missed!

One of the best place in the city. Good selection of food, nice and friendly staff and the best cheesecake in my life. Highly recommend this place for dinner and brunch

Met up with a friend for lunch, which lasted well into the evening. Delicious food, lovely wine and courteous staff. Just perfect, thank you.

Great food, great service in a lovely, lively location. Really enjoyed our brunch, definitely recommend it, booking advised

What an incredible dinner! A delicious menu to choose from, attentive and friendly service, and amazing flavours. The restaurant also has a really nice ambience, relaxed, formal and stylish. Will definitely be making a return visit!

Such a friendly place with delicious food. Nice music and I definitively would recommend visit this lovely restaurant!

Awesome meal. Staff welcoming and friendly. Went for a “large plate” starter with sides and portion size was good. Dessert was also fab.

Superb Sunday brunch menu! All very tasty, the eggs Pacifico were excellent! We were also served by a charming waiter, We enjoyed it very much 👍

Les burgers étaient bons, le service accuillant. Cadre sympa. Juste un souci qui reste élevé pour des burgers. Ça vaut 4 mais pas 5.

It was a a little quieter than the other places on the street. Great staff, super friendly and had an amazing dinner. The Monkfish scampi Curry was delicious and the Scottish Venison was unbelievable. Spectacular dinner.

A bit of everything to eat but with typical dishes, well done, tasty, very pleasant service 🙏 Thank you 🙏

Lovely Palestinian cafe - great food and service. The halloumi wrap was beautifully seasoned.

This is an absolutely lovely restaurant! Me and my dad went for Christmas and had an incredible meal here! I ate it all before i could take a picture and would love to go back again soon! The staff were so kind and welcoming towards us! I have the beef burger and apple crumble with rasps berry sorbet, it was incredible! Complete hidden gem

First class food and excellent service. The staff were lovely & very welcoming. Would highly recommend a visit here!!

Good was exceptional. Tables a bit close together but this is only a small restaurant. Would highly recommend.

Visited last year around the same time, and hoped that the experience would be similar, it was! Excellent food and service.

Very over priced Kicked us out after 80 minutes at lunchtime- only allowing 90mins between bookings which we weren't aware of until we'd just finished main course so no chance of coffee or dessert Also no accessible toilets Wouldn't recommend

Visited around 4.30 on a wet Sunday evening and it was great to find we could have an excellent, relaxing meal at that time. The staff were very friendly and there was a good selection of dishes on the menu. It is a small and cosy restaurant on the corner of Broughton Street and Broughton Place.

Not sure my photo does it justice but the brocoli tempura was delicious and the Thai panang curry was as good as in Thailand! Very friendly staff.

Another great meal. Met friends for a Christmas get together. Warm, cosy atmosphere. The food was delicious. The duck starter with noodles and then the smoked haddock risotto with poached egg were particularly good. Very good value for the quality of food.

This was our second visit here and it was just as good as it was a few years ago. The food is excellent and well presented. The staff are friendly as is the general atmosphere. It is a small,restaurant and booking is advisable. It’s situated slightly out of the busy centre but an easy walk down from the top of Leith Walk. Highly recommended

Lovely staff, very friendly. Delicious pumpkin spice expresso martini. Highly recommend!

We booked this late in afternoon but was able to get in, and while a bit of a walk from town, the food was really excellent - as was the service and we wouldn’t hesitate to come again

Lovely evening meal with our daughter. Third time we have been to this really great place. Soup or the day, apple and celeriac, delicious witg scrummy bread, followed by tender stem tempura brocolli and house pickles, we alsi had the curry, all really tasty. No room for deserts butbthe looked tasty. Great wine choices, went for the Pinot Noir from Romania. Lovely setting andcreally friendly service. Thanks!

Service off hand and terrible. Waited over an hour for food.

Good prices, service, and the food was very good. Definitely recommend!

The food is good but it was very busy and noisy when we went for lunch on a Saturday.

Just what we wanted for lunch. Delicious soup of the day with plenty of bread. We also had fantastic tempura broccoli and a decent bowl of chips. Glass of red wine on a cold day. Lovely service too. Lots of choice on the menu and the Scottish breakfasts looked huge!

We went here for a office lunch party from Lloyds Bank. We enjoyed the food and ambience. It was a great fun.

Excellent weekend brunch! This is the best meal in the week that I have been in Scotland.

Excellent brunch! We all enjoyed our meals and I had the best meal that I’ve had during my first week in Scotland. We had the rosti (one with haggis, one with bacon), the eggs Pacifica, and the avacado toast with salmon. All were reasonably priced and delicious.

We stopped at the Olive Branch for a late lunch. The staff were lovely, very welcoming. We had a club sandwich and a steak sandwich both beautifully presented and very filling needless to say dinner was late that night. It is definitely worth a visit for very good simple food. We will definitely be visiting again

Possibly five years since I last ate at The Olive Branch which was for many years an Edinburgh favourite where I have very good memories of the food, service and ambience. Unfortunately this visit didn't quite live up to my memory. The starters were good for everyone in our party of four (I had the delicious haggis bon bons). However, my fish and chips main was a bit of a disappointment. The fish was short on taste and the batter a bit soggy. It was also disappointing not to have an option of mushy peas as the salad served with it just didn't compliment it very well and consisted of mostly limp lettuce leaves which I suspect had sat under a heat lamp for a little too long. The service was also not as professional or engaging as I remember. Despite my review on this occasion, skewed by my fish and chips experience and the underwhelming service, I think it's still a decent restaurant, in a great part of town and the starters were very good.

Nice fresh cooked breakfast kept me going all day. Decent sausages not full of junk too.

Restaurant was only about one third full when I arrived. Was shown to a table hidden away and out of sight of staff. Waited ages but no-one came to take order, despite attending to customers at nearby table. Eventually I gave up and left. As I went out I told member of staff I was leaving because they were ignoring me. She said she had been very busy - heaven help them if the restaurant had been full! I am fed of up of single people (particularly single women) being treated as pariahs in restaurants. Went across road to L'Escargot Bleu's wine bar, where I was welcomed warmly and served quickly.

Water for dog provided. Nice and polite staff. For 3 mains and 2 drinks paid almost £70. The mayo was out of date and informed staff before paying but never got any discount

Molt bon menjar, agradable i còmode espai. Sense dubtar-ho, seríem clients habituals, si visquéssim a la ciutat.

Walked right in as a tourist on a Thursday. Quaint and cozy. Food was very good and tasty.

Coffee is rubbish, I make better at home. Food is okay but again I make better at home. Service was fine, no real complaints but most disappointingly the cafe was quite dirty. There was food spilt on the floor underneath our table, and the table was sticky. Not very pleasant.

A very warm welcoming place with enjoyable music, delightful plates with a big variety of choice and a smiling personnel

Absolutely fantastic. Best meal in a long time. Had calamari (which was absolutely perfect) and venison (also perfect). Will def be back.

Really enjoyed lunch today. Fish and chips then cheesecake.

Food is always brilliant and staff are very attentive. It has a good mix of dishes as well with special mention for the chicken burger - easily one of the best I have ever had. The pasta special is very good and all food is fresh. I have never had an issue with food or service. Only gripe is that it can get very hot inside due to lack of ventilation.

Interesting menu backed up by a sensational starter and meal. To top it off the staff were welcoming indeed.

Very nice place for brunch. All the food was very good, definitely recommend the potato rosti. The poach eggs were perfectly cooked as well. Definitely a must go for some food. Not a massive place though but waiting a bit is good.

Great find, we had the small plates and wow, they were amazing! Worth trying 4 or 5 for a couple, a lovely range to choose from. Each was cooked beautifully and very tasty. Other choices on main menu looked interesting and suit all ages (teens and over) Service was great and friendly, and altogether very good value for the money considering how great the food was .

Essen super lecker. Und auch die Bedienung freundlich. Wir kommen gerne wieder!

Lovely server, absolutely delicious Stilton burger 🍔 and calm unfussy atmosphere. Thank you 😊

Excellent meal & reasonably priced

Maybe it was just too busy for the two front-of-house staff, but this was a poor visit. Table wasn't cleared after main meals; not asked if we wanted more drinks; had to go to the counter to request dessert; ice cream had melted by the time we received said desserts. Hopefully a one-off, as we regularly eat there, but certainly not a guaranteed stop-off next time.

We stopped in at the Olive Branch for lunch and the whole experience was fantastic. We sat outside in the sunshine and were served by very welcoming staff, particularly Carina who was lovely! The food was fantastic, I highly recommend the fish and chips! We will definitely be back 😊

We went for a late lunch on a Sunday afternoon, and although we were the only people eating inside, we were made very welcome by the waitress, Rachel. She was also very patient when dealing with our dietary needs and we ended up with a delicious spread of adapted food from the starters and side menu. There were some wonderful combinations on the menu. My daughter had duck with orange and watermelon and I had the salmon with poached egg and roasted asparagus. All delicious!

Disappointing. Food quality poor. Pasta dish was soggy. Thai curry was over glutened sauce. I had mine with fish which I enjoyed. Chicken burger greasy. The worst of all was the monkfish dish! The serving was size of a starter. Surrounded by unappealing mush! Yes for £21!! We thought our friend had ordered a starter...noo.Of course she started to eat it hungrily, finished before we got ours. What a rip off! She was too polite to say anything...she had to order a portion of French fries as main dish was so poor. Place was too noisy we couldnt hear each other speak Stairway down to ladies toilets risky. Spiral metal steep staircase and sheet metal covering.Toilet hand towel bin overflowing. Untidy. Shabby place with excess chairs etc in view of customer. Broom cupboard doors open. Customers shoul see none of this! Wont be going back! p.s the ink print on the bill was faint and diffficult to read

Great food, the duck with orange is amazing. And service is great!

I went for a dinner menu. I ordered a shredded duck with fruit which was a bizzar combination with dry duck meat. The salt and pepper squid was so rubbery that it was hard to cut it with the knife. Ravioli with nduja was quite nice although the sauce was very thick. The main dish i had was curry with roasted aubergine - the rice tasted like it was microwaved, aubergine was very bitter and „the curry” had no actual taste and it was again very heavy.

Heerlijk gegeten, goede prijs/kwaliteit verhouding. Was wel geluk dat we nog een tafeltje hadden op de bonnefooi op zaterdagavond. Aardige bediening.

This delightful bistro is just wonderful. The staff were friendly and professional. We were led to a cosy table for two, tucked away at the back and brought water while we perused the menu. Ordered drinks which arrived very quickly then our beautiful main courses arrived. We both had the venison, which was perfectly cooked. The accompanying dauphinoise potato , celeriac puree and tenderstem broccoli was delicious. We also ordered dessert (wow! That cheesecake!) And cocktails which were lovely. Couldn't fault the food or the service. Left feeling satisfied and charmed. Our only regret is that we live 4 hours away and can't visit again soon!

Creative delicious food in New Town

Had the amazing full Scottish breakfast 😋 Service was great great value for money

We were shoehorned into a cramped corner. The venison was so tough that eating it was traumatic. I also don't know how you're expected to cut it with a table knife. The curry is fine but unremarkable, easily reproduced at home. Desert was pretty good. Service was good (excellent female server). In short, their food falls short of the mark and they've got greedy with their use of space.

We came for brunch last Sunday and were a bit disappointed, to be honest. The place gets full despite being quite pricey, but, as everything these days, the price doesn't reflect the quality of the experience - just how much people are willing to pay so they can then say they've been there. It was very noisy, the tables by the window were so close to each other that I could barely separate the chair to get in. I explicitly asked the waiter for the bacon not to be too cooked, and it came completely chargrilled; there wasn't a drop of moisture in it - it was like a crisp. We didn't make a fuss about it but felt disappointed.

Delicious brunch that catered to all the diverse dietary needs of our group! From booking the table (a last minute Mother's Day/Bday celebration for my Mum when we realised we could get everyone together from London/Berwick/Glasgow) to the friendly and attentive staff this was such a lovely experience. The food was really great. Highly recommend!

nice place to meet friends and have a lovely meal

Food was really good, at a reasonable price. We just felt a little rushed, which I thought was strange for a 5:15pm meal. It was a little uncomfortable. We only had mains, no starters or desserts. Part of our party was 10mins late... and we had a baby... So we were hardly the perfect clientèle (in the interest of full disclosure) we felt like we were in the bad books from the start from the staff. Just not great to feel rushed out... left a bad taste (pun intended) to a nice meal out in a nice venue...

We booked dinner here on a Saturday night. We were a bit surprised as we approached the restaurant, as all the large windows around the restaurant were completely obscured with condensation. I had haddock risotto, and my partner had scallops. Both dishes were excellent. However, the layout was extremely cramped, to the extent that I frequently had to move to allow customers from the tables behind me to get in and out of their seats. This did not make for a relaxing evening.

Lovely food, friendly staff, a little on the pricey side but worth a visit. Recommend. My partner had the vegetarian Sri Lankan curry and said it was gorgeous. I went for the venison which was equally good.

Stunning full Scottish breakfast and a great place in general. Would highly recommend for brunch. Coffee also unusually good for a food place.

It was a cold Sunday February evening we had a reservation for 6.30pm. There were customers at only one other table, so reservations were probably not necessary. The young ladies in charge of service were very courteous and attentive, without fussiness. Always nice to experience...

Had a delicious meal last night with friends. Smoked haddock with risotto, samphire and poached egg was sublime! Friendly staff and great value for money.

Had a fantastic meal. The quality of food and the service from the staff was exceptional

Great service and good location. Steak is excellent !

Having managed to secure childcare for Hogmanay for the first time in years we were excited to book a meal at the olive branch with friends for New Years Eve. Having eaten here for lunch before we knew the food was good so we were...

Spent a week in Edinburgh with friends and this was the best meal of our trip. Friendly, attentive service and a cosy atmosphere. Great cocktails and wine list. The food was fantastic. I had the pork gyoza to start and the completely delicious smoked haddock...

6 of us enjoyed a Fabulous meal on Friday 9th December, great atmosphere, cosy (apart from when someone kept leaving the door open!). The team of staff were very attentive especially given that it was busy. The food was delicious, we all had something different...

Premetto che durante la mia permanenza a Edimburgo non ho mai trovato dei brutti posti e mai sono stato male...

Hand a great meal, Staff lovely and service excellent.

Food delish, arrived quickly. Staff lovely and friendly. Service excellent. Yummm... we will be back.

I’ve never reviewed a place I wasn’t able to eat at before but in this case I will. We turned up on a busy Sunday at lunchtime hoping for a table but we hadn’t booked and unfortunately they couldn’t fit us in. The reason I am reviewing is simply because every customer was really obviously having a good time and the food looked and smelled incredible. I will book next time I’m in town. It’s too good to miss.

Amazing wonderful staff and the food is delicious

I try to visit the Olive branch on a monthly basis because their menu for breakfast and brunch is completely gorgeous. I'm super fan of the Rosti, but I have also tried the French toasts, pacifico eggs and the porridge. Everything is delicious! Good coffee as well. I have been also recommended to try their menu for dinner, well noted. This last time there was a Spanish waitress that was absolutely lovely, but I can say that all the staff are great!

Very good food, nice atmosphere, friendly staff, we felt very welcome there and we will be coming back

Last minute Booking and was fortunate to get a table here for early Dinner. The lady who answered the phone was very friendly and booked our table for two, I promptly received the text confirming the booking . The Olive branch was just a few...

First time here despite being quite local - but will certainly be back. Menu range is great - my Orkney Scallop starter and lamb main were really good and lovely presentation; sharing cheese board was a great way to finish. For such wonderful food the...

Great food, lovely and super speedy service

Interesting flavours and friendly atmosphere

My friend and I arrived close to closing time having been delayed at the talk we attended. Carina and Amy were wonderful, welcomed us in nevertheless, gave a quick choice of menu from which we chose very quickly, it arrived within minutes, was quite delicious...

The food here is absolutely amazing! 10/10. Would definitely eat here again!

Had a fantastic vegan breakfast with my partner. The meal was bursting with flavour and cooked to perfection. Staff were excellent and the atmosphere was very pleasant.

We had a lovely meal. Staff were ok.

Went for Sunday Brunch. Nice staff but food was just average...not bad, not great, just meh!