Every so often you hear about a place that makes you rearrange your diary. Tucked away on a quiet residential street in Marchmont, well south of anything a tourist would ever wander past, there is a twenty-seat restaurant that is quietly becoming one of Edinburgh's finest.
Nadair
Nadair (from the Scottish Gaelic for 'nature') sits at 15 Roseneath Street, in the heart of Edinburgh's student-heavy Marchmont neighbourhood. From the outside it is easy to miss entirely: a modest shopfront on a terrace of tenement flats. Inside, the dining room is stripped back and calm, all natural wood and soft lighting, with space for just twenty covers.
The restaurant is the first venture from chef couple Alan Keery and Sarah Baldry, who previously worked together at Edinburgh's well-regarded Wedgwood the Restaurant. They opened Nadair in August 2024 with minimal fanfare, and the place has been building a devoted local following ever since.
What makes Nadair special is the daily-changing five-course set menu. There is no a la carte. Each evening, Alan and Sarah build a new menu around whatever is freshest and most exciting from their network of local producers and foragers. The cooking draws on Scottish and Scandinavian influences, with foraged ingredients woven through every course: expect things like sea buckthorn, chanterelle mushrooms, wild garlic, pine needle, and sea truffle to appear depending on the season. Past dishes have included cavatelli pasta with chanterelles and black garlic, pollock in smoked butter with celeriac and sweet chewy seaweed, and salt cod with wild garlic puree and crispy skirlie. Sarah's pastry skills shine in the desserts and in the Isle of Mull cheddar beignets with truffle honey, which are available as a supplement and absolutely worth the extra few pounds.
The wine list leans towards natural and minimal-intervention bottles, and there is a thoughtful pairing option for each course. The forage-inspired cocktails, made with seasonal in-house infusions, are worth arriving early for.
Dinner is served Thursday from 6pm and Friday to Sunday from 5:30pm, with the five-course set menu at 65 pounds per person and wine pairings at 45 pounds. A set lunch is available on Saturdays and Sundays from noon. For a tasting menu of this calibre in Edinburgh, the price is genuinely remarkable. Booking is essential: with only twenty covers and growing word of mouth, tables go quickly. You can reserve through restaurantnadair.com or call 0131 629 2322.
Nadair holds a 5.0 rating on Google from a small but passionate handful of reviewers. On TripAdvisor it sits at 4.8 out of 5. The postcode is EH9 1JH. There is no dedicated parking, but street parking on Roseneath Street and the surrounding Marchmont streets is usually straightforward in the evenings. The nearest bus routes run along Marchmont Road, a two-minute walk away, and it is about a twenty-minute walk from Waverley Station through the Meadows.
If you are the sort of person who would rather eat somewhere with twenty seats and a chef who knows your name than queue for a table at a place with a PR team, Nadair is your kind of restaurant.
