The independent cinema and cafe-bar Cameo on Edinburgh's southside is a delightful place with friendly staff and real atmosphere.

I will surely miss having coffee or a bottle of beer before or after a carefully selected movie...

Cameo bar, Tollcross, Edinburgh

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

One of the most loved places for hippies, lefties, backpackers and young artists: the Forest Cafe, run by a DIY collective of artists, is the best place in Edinburgh to hang out in a non-capitalist fashion and meet like-minded people.

With free internet access, an art gallery, vegan and vegetarian food and stunning entertainment and events during and outside of the festival, this is the craziest place in town for dissidents and thinkers.

No matter if you want to watch films, read the latest protesting leaflets, or drop off your clothes and old books in the free shop, the Forest is the space for you. Just around from the university, it constantly changes.

It’s usually open from about 11am -11pm, licensed - sometimes with bring-your-own bottle - and during August it’s open till 3am. Also, it sells famous organic heather ale and seaweed beer.

3 Bristo Place, EH1 1EY;
tel: 0131 220 4538;
theforest.org.uk;
bus stop: 2, 42

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

Down towards the Botanics and Stockbridge end of town, Circle is a welcome addition to Edinburgh's cafe scene. Located in a tall, cool, stone-walled, slate floored room, Circle offers great morning coffee and cakes, and good well-priced lunches - though be warned, it can be hard to get a table at lunchtime. Simple, well-cooked dishes at reasonable prices in great surroundings.

Circle, 1 Brandon Tce, Edinburgh
0131 624 4666

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

With its bright yellow interior, this cafe feels like being inside one of Van Gogh's sunflower paintings. Tucked away in a side street off the Royal Mile, near steps leading down to Princes St Gardens, it's the type of place where you can sit for hours and read the paper without being disturbed.

8 St Giles St, Edinburgh

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

If you’re a foodie, find the ultimate deli: Valvonna and Crolla. This is for the serious gourmet. Squeeze past each other in the narrow tiled aisles and avoid the hanging salamis and hams overhead. Sample the succulent fat-laden mortadella. Be tempted by the transparent shavings of prosciutto freshly cut. Indulge your baser instincts in the creamy soft blue St Agur that slowly melts on the tongue to the gentle persuasion of Graham’s Vintage Port. And for a present to bring home? An estate bottled olive oil from Umbria? Some bulbs of roasted garlic from the Languedoc? And as for wine...

When the finest Italian food shop in the country only sells one fresh sausage, you know it's going to be good. Valvona & Crolla's Fonteluna doesn't disappoint. This is a solid, semi-cured sausage flavoured with chilli and fennel. As it is semi-cured it can be eaten raw as a salami or cooked. It can be cooked by either frying or grilling. As it is a dry sausage it really needs a wet sauce - I like it diced in a tomato sauce, thinly sliced and used as a pizza topping or with peppers.

It's not cheap at £4.95 for 265g but this is concentrated, strong tasting sausage with no water or cheap filler. Highly recommended! It would be a hard soul that would not come out of here the richer in taste and the poorer in pocket. Worth visiting on a Sunday morning, especially for their imported Indian peppercorns, or just to sit and have tea in their restaurant while the world muses and peruses. Blue Mountain coffee or green tea? Jalapenos peppers or habaneros?

Valvona & Crolla: 19 Elm Row, Edinburgh EH7 4AA
VinCaffè: 11 Multrees Walk, Edinburgh EH1 3DQ;
www.valvonacrolla.co.uk

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

From outside the Dean Gallery looks like what it used to be: a hospital. Not the orphan hospital it actually was, but more a retreat for Victorian gents with gout, set as it is in opulent grounds. But it’s all about the beauty on the inside. Surrealist art (including works by Dali and Man Ray), a recreation of Sir Eduardo Paolozzi’s haphazard studio, a shop packed with fascinating books, and a buzzing café in which locals and visitors share their love of art over steaming cups, all combine to make it an unusually vibrant gallery experience.

Not quite so lively is the Dean Cemetery, located at the side of the gallery. But it’s still wonderful to stroll through the trees and read the names of forgotten scholars and captains of industry on mossy mausoleums and gravestones.

Old and new melted into one another. Dali might have liked it.

The Dean Gallery it located directly opposite the National Gallery of Modern Art, Belford Road, Lothian. Number 13 Bus from Georges Street; entry is free; www.natgalscot.ac.uk

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

A small, "independent" cinema just up the road from the larger and more obvious Odeon and Filmhouse. It has an old-fashioned entrance, with the films and times chalked up on a blackboard on the way in. Shows a mix of independent, art-house and cultish mainstream films, with midnight specials and Sunday double-bill matinees. Friendly young staff (apparently there's a waiting list to work there), old-fashioned foyet snack shop, and a small bar/cafe in the back. A really nice cinema experience.

Home Street (top end of Lothian Road).

www.picturehouses.co.uk/site/cinemas/Cameo/local.htm

0131 228 4141

Served by buses: 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 23, 27, 37 to Tollcross
or the 23, 27 to Lauriston Place.

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

A great place to stop after a walk on Arthur's Seat, the Engine Shed is an unpretentious vegetarian cafe-cum-community project (several of the staff have Down's Syndrome, for example). Give something back to the local community and stop here - also handy for Inspector Rebus sites...

19 St Leonard's Lane, Edinburgh, EH8 9SD

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

Plaisir is the chocolate-lover's G-spot. Hot chocolate, bitter with chillies or creamy with creme de chantilly and whisky; towering three-layer gateaux of pear and ganache; bon-bons; tartes and brioches. Baudelaire decorates the floor; silver samavars the walls. Ideally, have the gateaux OR the hot chocolate - both can kill you! (Also serves dozens of teas - but not coffee).

251-251 Canongate
www.plaisirduchocolat.com

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

Newly opened cafe. A pleasant, easy ambience and free of the rabid noise that characterises many other city centre eateries. Food is British/European, freshly made to order and the waitresses (often eastern European) are polite, friendly and swift. Oh and the prices won't burst your sporran either.

The cafe is a venture run by St Mary's Cathedral on Broughton St, past the Thistle Centre, near the top of Leith Walk. Entrance is on Little King St;
tel: 0131 523 0102;
www.stmaryscathedral.co.uk/camino.html

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends