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The truth
about... Edinburgh Style bars by Keith Davidson
Style bars suck wherever you are, says Keith Davidson.
The first warning sign comes as you wander in the door and take a seat - the table has
sticky patches from the last customer's beer spillage. Fifteen minutes later, someone
turns up to take an order. A snack of nachos and a glass of house red perhaps? You
also ask for the table to be wiped. The waitress heads for the bar and you see her
drain the dregs from last night's bottle of house red before opening a fresh one to
fill your glass. She comes back without a cloth. "Er, wipe the table?" you remind
her politely. She goes to get a cloth, testily. Meanwhile, the wine tastes just on
the okay side of dodgy. Another fifteen minutes passes while you wait for the nachos.
The zeitgeist bar snack arrives covered in salty artificial flavouring with livid
green industrial guacamole substitute and glutinous salsa. There has been no skimping
on the sour cream, but the "chef" has clearly failed to master microwave technology
as the alleged cheese has failed to melt…
Style bars? No thank you.
Okay, Edinburgh may have its fair share of these, but not
every style bar is a total disaster. The City Café,
for example, not only has elder statesman status (it's been
around for years with its retro Americana chic) but will buoy
you up with a huge cooked breakfast in the late morning,  offers
languid afternoons around the pool table, then becomes pre-club
on weekend evenings. The food is more filling than finessed.
Another long-established but more upmarket name is Montpeliers
(see photo). This is effectively a bar with a restaurant
area cheek by jowl and contemporary décor. You can snack on
small dishes (potato wedges), opt for steak or salad, or go
for a comforting plate of fish and chips.
Meanwhile the two branches of Favorit in
Edinburgh ape the City Café a little, in aesthetic terms,
but the staff are generally helpful and the small tapas plates
are actually pretty good (olives and feta; mozzarella, basil
and tomato salad; hummus with red pepper slices).
Then bang in the city centre come the aspiring duo of Rick's
(see photo) and the Opal Lounge, both hangouts
for the beautiful people. Rick's is a boutique hotel as well
as a bar and restaurant; daytime is better for snacking, it
does a decent weekend breakfast, and you can always just have
some oysters at the bar. The Opal Lounge is strictly style
bar with a menu that genuflects to Asia (snacks like tuna
sashimi, bento box meals, and more substantial dishes like
curries or noodles).
So, not all bad nachos and dirty wine glasses, then.
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