Old is new
In Edinburgh’s taverns and caverns, bask in Innis and Gunn brews or sip on fun twists on whisky concoctions
On the surface, the city shows Scotland at its most formal, dressed in full kilt garb for a family wedding.
Once elderly relatives go to bed, the city loosens its tie and the restrained facade slips.
I meet 21st Century Kilts owner Howie Nicholsby, 38, at Timberyard, where they keep the quality and cut the pomp of Edinburgh’s Michelin-standard restaurants.
He expects a “sexy Canadian journalist” and gets me, a lanky fellow Scot.
Nicholsby is what we call “gallus” — boldly confident and comfortable in his skin. It helps he’s handsome enough to model his own kilts. He wasn’t always this way. He once struggled with his own psyche, so much he ardently believed his family and friends were characters from Tekken. That’s right — the ’90s combat video game.
Today, he’s emblematic of Edinburgh’s revitalized remembrance of its roots.
“Do you know what Lothian Road used to be like?” Nicholsby asks as we gorge on succulent venison and a vibrant palette of beetroot, shallots and kale.
I do. It was no picnic. The area around Timberyard is now a bastion of high-calibre casual dining in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle.
“In Trainspotting, Ewan McGregor stands in beautiful scenery and says ‘it’s shite being Scottish.’ To me, that was a proper stab in the heart. A generation decided it wasn’t going to be like that anymore.”
I go searching for a bar near the fluted Greek Doric columns of the Royal Scottish Academy gallery.
A fortune teller, think Tom Hanks in Big, welcomes me to Hoot the Redeemer.
I play a fluorescent crane claw machine to decide my drink’s flavour. I’m already hooked when I try the alcoholic White Russian ice cream.
At his first bar, Panda and Sons, I met Sydney-born South Korean Scot, Iain McPherson, 29.
“I want to appeal to everyone’s in- ner kid,” the Peter Pan of Edinburgh bars tells me while straining Johnnie Walker and rhubarb lemongrass shrub.
“I like creating something from nothing.”
Iain took empty premises, blank canvases and unshackled his imagination. The first became a speakeasy disguised as a barbershop. The second, a 1950s fairground.
Iain’s concoction, “The Birdcage”, arrives under a glass bell jar bursting with cinnamon smoke. The dome lifts and whisky is set free.
What’s old is new again. It’s a familiar mantra to Nicholsby, who has exclusively worn a kilt since 1999.
“Wear it like jeans,” he advises. “With chunky boots or sandals. Kilts precede formality. It was farmed in, lived in, partied in. It didn’t have all this etiquette.”
I go to Innis and Gunn’s Beer Kitchen next to the grand Edwardian venue, the Usher Hall. They’ve given the Scottish boozer a sleek, back-to-basics makeover in the mould of the Mill Street Brewery.
I walk to the arched caverns of Edinburgh Gin’s Distillery and choose botanicals to create my own One Yonge Street bottle. I packed it with bitter flavours (orange and almond) because I’m experiencing a Scottish “summer” while Toronto gets another heat wave.
I left Nicholsby at silly o’clock, full of gin and wine, and stood on Princes St. to marvel at flags flowing against the deep cobalt sunrise slowly revealing the screensaver-worthy cityscape.
It’s hard to leave the comfort of the