The Chanter

ended up at The Chanter for one of my work colleague’s leaving night. on arrival we wandered in and found a massive area that had been reserved for our party, so big thumbs up that there was a place to sit for everyone that came :) i know i’m not old, but i am old enough to appreciate a seat in a pub!
once the first round of drinks was ordered, we also put in a food order for a light dinner. the menu is vaguely similar to wetherspoons bars and the like so basic pub grub with an emphasis on fried food and burgers. nothing to complain about though as it was good value and from the food i tried it was tasty as well. just what you need to help soak up drinks on a work night out! also the drinks were well priced, with a bottle of white being only about £11 and they also offer a student discount if you’re lucky enough to have one of those handy student cards!
on top of drinks, loads of seats, and decent pub grub this place plays good music and draws in a varied crowd of people! we happened to be there the friday night before the Scotland v France rugby match so had an abundance of french men about wanting a drink and chat. i have to say that i really enjoyed my night and that this place is definitely A-​OK. maybe not the most glamourous of venue, but more than acceptable for a good night out with the work colleagues.

Flew in from the states and roamed all the way down Grass Market and decided to eat here on the way back to my hotel. The staff here was very helpful and welcoming and the bar was surprisingly upscale inside. They served some great brews and I the food I ordered was quite good. It was supper time, but I went with the all-​day breakfast and it was a solid choice.
It was one of the cheapest places I’ve eaten at during my stay here in Edinburgh and the one eatery I would go out of my way to visit again.
Thanks for the hospitality. :cheers:

The Chanter is a bar with rather a student focus, the drinks are cheap and there are plenty of screens to watch the football or other sporting event, yet despite a reasonable mix of beverages I found the place to lack character. It is an ideal starting off point but I wouldn’t want to spend the entire evening here.
If you are out with a large group of 10 – 20 then this is a good spot, nice enough décor and cheap (for Edinburgh) drinks, just be aware there are likely to be a fair few 18 – 20 year old students…

The chanter is fab! Perfect student place, so cheap & the food is good (for cheap/​quick fill you up food,… maybe not fine dining!) the staff are great banter, & actually look like they enjoy their jobs!! They always have deals going on & themed nights… it has a use for everything really: after work drinks, catching up with mates, hungover food trips etc etc. My one tiny criticism here is that I wouldn’t come when the live music is on & you want to be able to talk to any of your friends… its SO loud?! Which is strange because normally they don’t play background music that loud at all.
It can get REALLY busy in here,… i’m talking not being able to move busy! In that case I suppose the wait to get served can get long but that is expected. When its like that its full of atmosphere though, nothing worse than being in an empty bar!
Only downside to this place is the bouncers on fri/​sat nights, really not keen on them as they can be very rude! Otherwise this place is a must if you are a student in Edinburgh.

Good small pub. There you will see all kind of people from the worker to the business man. Good beer, small and familial.

The Chanter is the ‘old faithful’ for all students. It has great nights, mostly monday and thursday nights which is when they hold the pub quizzes. The drinks, with a student card are cheap. £1.95 for Tennants of Fosters (not bad) and the rest aren’t too bad either. They also have bottles Echo Falls for £5.
The décor is great, and the cleanliness is on the good side. The food isn’t bad either! It’s perfect in pairs to take advantage of 2 for 1 deals for 6.95. However, on a busy night the service can be a bit dodgy.
Also, if you’re a fan of pool, its a perfect spot. During the day it’s not too busy to take advantage of. In the evenings you can book areas off for birthday parties as well.
Even though it may not be catered as much for the more mature crowd, it is very popular on weekends for the non student types. It’s worth going in for a look!

Can’t see past Chanter these days. Over this long weekend I found myself there Thursday, Friday AND Sunday! Greedy or what?
This place just seems to have the right atmosphere all the time. Whether it be the Pub Quiz on Thursday that balances DJ and quiz master to a degree you can still have a jolly social without the need to sit in contemplative silence; or perhaps the after work crowd on Friday who are all up for a bit of chat about whatever Sky Sports News are reporting on at that moment; or even the live music Sundays where the students congregate before heading off to Lava or Lulu or wherever, always good for a random pool competition.
Just a cracking bar that ticks all the boxes:
— Reasonably priced drinks? Bottle of Rose, £5 — can’t say fairer. On top of that, pretty standard city prices.
— Cheap, edible food? Think Yell Pub grub. Do-​able. Plus they do some great, verging-​on-​ridiculous offers each week (Cheeseburger and fries, £2.50? Um… yes!)
— Friendly staff? Always pleasant, even when refusing the over-​inebriated. Like to have a chat in the quieter times also.
— Live music? Sunday night. Acoustic guitars. Always a winner.
— Pool table? It has pockets and balls… a very thin pass.
— Cool clientele/​atmosphere? Good mix, no yas, minimal chavs. Avoid on Bank Holiday weekends as the balance will tip in the favour of rowdy blokes.
— Live Sport? Can’t turn 45 degrees without being in view of a telly!
Like that likable friend you should probably hate because they do everything right, but can’t because they’re just… so damn likable!
Best all rounder on that side of town. Salute!

Great deals on food, you basically get a meal for a pound or two if you order off the cheap menu! Great way to line the belly. Shows most sports and theres always a good crowd in.

Nice spacious busy pub with an above-​average selection of beers on tap and pretty good prices for food as well. Lots of meal-and-beer-for-£6 deals and our food was quite decent. I will be back.

The Chanter serves up decently priced alcohol, and the bar staff were pretty friendly and attentive the last time I was in, so for those reasons, it is an advantageous place to visit for some inexpensive beverage supping in a friendly, fairly banterous atmosphere, clientele wise.
I don’t think the bar itself particularly has bundles of character to it, as there’s not terribly much going on with the décor, but I suppose the point is that you’re not really there to take notes on the patterns on the wallpaper, it’s more about getting down to some no nonsense drinking and having some down to earth fun. The premises are fairly big, so you’ve got a good chance of getting a seat with your pint, plus you can play pool if you manage to snag the table before someone else gets in there.

I was taken here once by a group of my ex-​boyfriend friends, who all go to Napier. As it is just a 5 minute walk from the Napier Halls, it’s their local. As a result it was full of shouting students and roudy drunks. Not really my scene.
The bar itself is reasonably nice, it’s a nice dark brown and cream theme. But the seats are grotty and tables are sticky. We went to play pool and only one pool queue was in operation, it made the whole thing quite difficult. When I was there they were showing the Superbowl so every other minute people would be screaming in my ear or swearing at a bad call.
The staff were quite snippy too, I didn’t feel very welcomed, and they made no effort to clear up all the empties we were beside.

The Chanter is a pub which, despite being a favourite of students and young folk alike, doesnt entirly deserve the returning loyalty of its punters.
While the The Chanter itself looks good, and is by all accounts has a fun atmosphere when the night is right — it has an air of being niether amazing or awful, rather a run of the mill, indistinguishable bar that tries to cater for students.
Drinks arent amazingly cheap in my opinion (although that might just be me), and the food which is cheap in comparison to other places in the area is basic and uninteresting. Staff are rude, and once I had managed to get the bar maid to stop chatting to her mate, slow.
However, despite all this The Chanter is somewhere I keep returning to — for a game of pool perhaps, or for cocktails with a large group of mates because we are almost always gauranteed a seat and to bump into somebody we know.

The Chanter is a sort of «unofficial» hang out for Napier students. Its a common meeting point for the beginning of nights out for students, so as you can imagine it can be quite loud, crowded and just generally ‘studenty’.
Its pretty cheap, which is probably why there is so many students. We were in the mood for cocktails, which is never really a good idea in a cheap bar. The cocktail menu said it was £3 for one, or special deal of two for £6. Uh huh, thanks for doing the math for me there but that isn’t really any sort of deal. I’m not sure if they are just hoping people are too drunk to notice or its just a genuine mistake. Anyway as you can imagine the cocktails were lousy, as were the regular drinks.
The music was okay, quite a varied mix. And there was plenty of places to sit (that’s the old lady in me coming out again). There isn’t really anything outstanding about this bar to separate it from the rest, but its okay for a quick drink to start your night.

The Chanter is a pub on Bread Street in the Tollcross area of Edinburgh.
The first time I visited this place I did not enjoy it; the bouncers were obnoxious, arrogant and cocky, the place was teeming with rowdy freshers and the barmaid was rude to me — I ended up leaving and going over to the Blue Blazer for a reminder of how good pubs should be. However many of my uni friends frequent this place, so I thought I should give it another try. I went on a Monday night, so there were no bouncers crowding the doorway with their over-​inflated egos, the barman was really nice and friendly, and I discovered that they sell a palatable £5 bottle of wine — score! My friend and I ended up winning the pub quiz (which had a cash prize of £50, nice one), so all in all a pretty good night.
This pub is really popular with students, which doesn’t make it the quietest of establishments, but if you’re looking for a cheap drink, it’s not such a bad place.

The Chanter is a favourite of mine, though I’m not quite sure why. In all respects it is a totally decent pub, yet it seems to be quite difficult to say much more than that. It has a sense of awesomeness that I can’t quite put my finger on.
Maybe it’s the relaxed atmosphere or the booze or maybe it’s the booze, but I really like the Chanter. I love that banter.

So, er it’s a pub! Not really good, not really bad, it’s hard to pick anything remarkable (or remarkably bad) about Chanters.
The young crowd seem to be here for the convenient location — near the student apartments on Lady Lawson St and the Grassmarket/​Royal Mile. It’s the corner shop of boozers.
In fitting with this image, the food is reassuringly Wetherspoonsy. Caerphily Sausage & Mash and Beef & Tetley Ale Pie subscribe to the ‘traditional pub grub with a twist’ genre. But at 2 meals for £6.95, it’s hard to turn your nose up.
There’s something on every night including quizzes on Monday and Wednesday, 2 live music nights a week and video game tournaments on a Sunday.
The interior is a bit of a jumble. On one large wall hangs an incongrously small, off-​centre painting seemingly there to fill space, not give the pub a sense of taste. See also the piano — always an encouraging sign in a pub — pushed against the wall and forgotten. Its potential is wasted, a bit like the pub’s.

The Chanter is a great pub for banter! Situated in a great location just off Lothian Road, it is a sizable pub so you will always find a seat. Although it’s pretty big it still manages to be quite homely and not in any way exposed. A great range of drinks are served, with an especially good selection of beers from around the world. It is also open to the decent hour of 1am!

This has to be a personal favourite pub for my workplace in Edinburgh. The pub is found just on a side street (Bread Street) just off Lothian Road. The pub is spacious and has plenty of seats so it is only on big match nights you will have to stand-​up.
There are special £1.50 drink nights (currently on Wednesdays and Sundays) and a pub quiz with £50 bar tab prize (currently on Mondays). It is especially popular with students so if you are at university you, I am sure, meet someone you know! The pub is actually a lovely place to chill out and have a few beers. The atmosphere is always great and it is a fantastic bar to watch the sport as everyone that fills the bar are 100% fans of whatever sport happens to be on !!
The location is great as it is easy to pick-​up taxis and fast-​food as well as there being several other pubs and bars if you feel the desire to move on.