The Roamin’ Nose

Delicious homemade cakes! Had the tiramisu and honey walnut cake with lattes with soy milk. Good place to go but best to go before 3pm of you want food!

We were in Edinburgh visiting friends and came to the Roamin’ Nose for dinner on the Saturday night. For a starter I had a three pesto dip combination with different slices of bread. I didn’t use all the pesto but the owner recommended that we keep them on the table for the main courses which was an inspired idea, I can’t remember all of the components of my main course but I cleared the plate and ate all of the salad much to Julia D’s surprise. I was too full for dessert but all four of us shared a mint chocolate cake. From where I sat I could see into the kitchen as they made a different array of pasta dishes.
The entire bill for four with wine came and a tip to £100 which was money well spent, the equivalent place in London would have charged a lot more. I recommend and would definitely come back next time I’m north of the border.

My friends Meredith and Andy live nearby and took me here on my visit. I had a delicious cauliflower and cheese soup. It was seriously a flavorful and healthy tasting soup. It came with a spoonful of cheese that you could add to the soup.
Matt B got a three dip combo that was pesto, red pepper, and olive. It came with nice slices of white bread.
My main was a warm salad with greens, quinoa, goat cheese, beets, and sweet potatoes. I’d never had a warm salad like that. Very unique.
The owner was a super friendly and and made us feel like she was hosting us in her house.
We got mint chocolate cake for dessert. The cake was a little dry, but the frosting was delicious.
I wish I lived closer.

Had a very disappointing brunch here recently. We had booked a table for 4 in advance explicitly stating we wanted brunch. Upon arrival we were given a table and after a lengthy amount of time looking at the menus were eventually given some water for the table. After having decided what we wanted and having to get the waitresses’ attention numerous times, it was time to make our order. However it was not to be. Despite having only opened an hour beforehand, the breakfast menu was depleted with over half of the options listed being unavailable. Their excuse of being busy due to the fringe was disappointing, the whole city is busy for the fringe, I don’t see any other restaurants completely run out of food! We settle for some breakfast sandwiches consisting of seemingly the last remnants of sausage, egg and bacon in the place, some french toast and salmon with scrambled eggs… or so I thought.
After a while of waiting, our food arrives, it’s ok. Something I could have easily rustled up at home in about half the time to be honest. However I’m given French Toast when I explicitly ordered salmon and told by my rather rude waitress that this is what I ordered and when I told her otherwise she informed me that there was no salmon left and briskly walked off.
I won’t be returning to this restaurant, the food was mediocre at best, the availability of options was quite frankly pathetic and the service was atrocious.

A friend took me here for breakfast on a Sunday and I was pleasantly surprised by how cosy and nice it was! The café itself is very quaint and sort of rustic, with well-​drawn portraits of Bill Murray on the walls. The staff was really lovely and we’d made a reservation, so we go a nice seat by the window. It is not to far from Stockbridge and it was a was fairly busy so it was good we’d planned ahead.
The breakfast menu isn’t too extensive, but everything looked really good, as they offer eggs, bacon and sausage options with toast, they have French toast, salmon and cream cheese with toast or either a meat-​filled or full-​vegetarian breakfast for £8.90. We opted for the full veggie breakfast and each had a coffee. The coffee was well-​made and tasted good, although I think they use a pre-​ground coffee or some sort of Italian bean as it wasn’t super distinctive in flavour, but that’s me being a coffee snob! It was complete fine and warm and tasty.
The breakfast arrived in good time and it was delicious! There was toast, one egg (cooked either scrambled, poached or fried) veggie haggis, two veggie sausages, grilled mushrooms and baked beans. It was a very generous portion and everything was so good, especially the vegetarian haggis. I could have eaten just that! It had walnuts and split peas in it I think and it was absolutely amazing. If anything, they get me as a fan for that.
It is a worthwhile stop for a well-​priced breakfast. I got the pricier option, but most of the breakfast options come in between £5−7. On the weekend they don’t serve lunch until one, but they had some tasty looking breakfast-​ish type sandwiches that sounds good, so I will definitely have to be back for lunch!

I took my parents here for lunch and was super impressed by this place. It is cosy, has a really friendly atmosphere and is the perfect place to take people for a relaxed weekend lunch.
We came at the ‘awkward lull’ between breakfast and lunch (starts at 1pm), and had to sit with only hot drinks for 20 minutes. However, once we ordered our meals, they arrived promptly and were certainly worth the wait. I had the special salad (v) and a side of chips — which were amazingly thin and crisp-​like. My parents both had steak sandwiches.
The staff were lovely, chatty and very attentive.
I’m excited to try out the evening and breakfast menus too!

This casual café serves British breakfasts and Italian pastas. We stumbled in the other night looking for an early dinner, and were told the kitchen didn’t open till 6pm (it was around 5:30, I think), but our friendly waitress suggested we could start with drinks and get our food orders in so that they could be prepared as soon as the kitchen was open. We started with some cocktails (a negroni and a caipirinha) and the pesto and tapenade with bread. The drinks were on the small side, but priced appropriately to their size. As a main I had the pappardelle with mushrooms. The pasta was nicely-​cooked and the sauce was tasty. I wish we could have given the desserts a try, but we had to leave to get to another engagement.
Overall the Roamin’ Nose was a nice spot for a casual dinner. The breakfast menu looked pretty good — I think we’ll return for brunch sometime soon, too.

I’ve just finished a plate of pan seared lamb medallions with peppers, red onions, plums, and sweet potatoes. Washed down with a big glass of red. It was delicious! I am most definitely satisfied, and content.
I love it here. The Roamin’ Nose is a lovely wee place for great food and a relaxed atmosphere, especially if you get a few plates to share so you can have your fill and enjoy a range of delicious food.
Very relaxed, friendly service, and pictures of Bill Murray on the walls. They say good things happen in threes, well, in this case fours: food, friendly, relaxed, and Bill Murray.

This has become my favourite place to eat and enjoy an evening in New Town over the last six months. It’s relaxed, cosy, welcoming, simple and scrumptious, and is the place we are always sure to recommend or take our visiting guests to.
We recommend approaching it in the following way to get the absolute best out of your visit:
1. Get a treat and have a bottle of prosecco (same price as a bottle of white and even more fun)
2. Get a sharing platter and maybe some of their special crostini to start — YUM!
3. Ask them very very nicely if you can share all your main dishes…
The sharing platters are so delicious that we’ve got into the habit of having one and then sharing their main course dishes in a ‘tapas’ style — it makes for a really fun evening and means that you get to taste a little of every delicious, Italian inspired dish. They put the food, some salad and their lovely homemade ‘chips’ in the centre of the table and you have little plates and simple explore it all!
4. Go eye up the homemade desserts at the counter and order the tirimasu or chocolate mousse (my favourites), or basically anything else as it’s all good :-)
5. Have a hot chocolate with locally made marshmallows
6. Fall into a happy food-​coma
7. Come back on the last Sunday of the month and enjoy it all again whilst listening to their acoustic music night (5ish to 8ish).
You don’t have to do it this way, you can also pop by for a full dinner or just a lovely glass of wine/​piece of cake, either way you’ll enjoy it — but we’ve carefully honed this to be our favourite way to dine there!
Overall, their ingredients are really interesting and the dishes taste fresh and comforting. The atmosphere is lovely, relaxed but stylish, with considerate staff, and last but not least, they’re welcoming to all ages (including babies and dogs!).
Lovely stuff and thumbs up all round.

This place is adorable. The staff are very friendly, the coffee and pastries are great (try the cake), and the food is surprisingly good and original for such good prices. The haloumi and bean salad is my favourite thing on the menu, but everything is good. I’ve been here four or five times now. We were also fascinated and charmed to find that they have a series of portraits of Bill Murray throughout the restaurant — too cute!
It’s also a great place to get some work done with your laptop — there are couches near the front window with a charming, relaxing view of Eyre Place (especially when it’s sunny out), and there are power outlets available near the tables and couches at the front by the windows. The only warning if you want to get work done is that families seem to frequent this place, so there’s a chance you’ll be sitting in close quarters to somewhat noisy small children.
I don’t drink beer, but the people I go here with love the beer menu.
This is one of my favourite cozy spots in Edinburgh.

Although this place is adorable and the long list of specials indeed special, I don’t think you should offer food that doesn’t play to your strong suits and thus I can’t recommend this place. Their specials were all over the place from a seabass salad to steak. Should have stuck with the italian theme and ordered ravioli. I ordered a chili bean dish which ended up being a sad pass as a burrito complete with salsa with no flavor and crème fraîche instead of sour cream. Come on! Google Mexican and get it right, man. My sisters pulled pork sandwich was awesome but even on her plate there was some disappointment like the potato chips that were cut too thick. I will say, the chocolate Nutella peanut butter cake was nice but when I ordered a flat white I was served a latte. Ugh. Give it a miss.

I really love the Roamin Nose — granted I’ve only been here for breakfast but the breakfast menu is brilliant and really cheap especially compared to others in the area. My husband ordered the full breakfast which was really a good size for the price and my scrambled eggs are always divine with chunky toast.
Whenever I’ve been in — and its been a number of times I’ve always ordered the same thing cause i cant fault it but the staff are always really helpful although ok sometimes they have been a little slow but that’s the only fault i can pick up here.
The breakfast menu at least has brilliant choices they are always happy to accomodate young children and they even have books for them at the sofas in the front window which is a nice touch.
I love this café, I’ve yet to go on a Sunday afternoon when they have live music but i will be popping down soon. Not too cramped, plenty of room, great menu and especially compared to other cafes in the area the prices are really good!
Kind of quirky — you must check out the Bill Murray portraits for sale all over the place i don’t know the artist but they must really love bill murray brilliant!
Personally, I love the Roamin Nose, the menu is fab, the location and décor, the food is always perfect and the price is excellent …

I really rather torn writing this review, as i feel like 3.5 would have been a better rating and i can’t force myself to give this place 4 stars. however this past friday night saw me wandering through the doors to The Roamin’ Nose to meet some friends for a girly dinner. it was a warm day outside and having power walked the whole way i was fairly warm as well. what immediately put me off this place was the fact that they had the heat on high! i literally felt like i walked into a sauna on arrival and seeing my friend sat across the dining room against the heater, she felt the same. after the third of our party arrived we contemplated menus.
now, what i do like about this place is that the menu is short. they clearly know what they do well and they keep the menu restricted to that. they also have a daily specials board to help bring some variety in. after ordering a bottle of prosecco to share we decided to try the small bites tray, i ordered the fetticuini vegetable galore, and finished off with a slice of victoria sponge.
the small bites tray was excellent! loads of tasty dips, chutneys, cured meats, my request artichokes, olives, and a fresh basket of bread. the pesto was absolutely lovely and clearly freshly made! there was also a nice tasting fig chutney and the olive tapenade had a good olive-​y taste to it. the artichokes that i’d made a bit of a fuss to include were tasty but i found them a bit harder than i would have expected.
mains arrived shortly after the tray was cleared away and i have to say while i did enjoy my main, i was a bit underwhelmed. it was a fairly basic dish, fetticuini noodles mixed with carrots, courgettes, and aubergines, some parsley and olive oil then topped with parmesan cheese. the dish was tasty and done well but something i could have made at home, so it was hard to be overly wowed by it. my friend felt the same of the penne carbanora which she said was rather bland.
after clearing away the dishes and topping up the prosecco we went for dessert. as said above i had a slice of victoria sponge. it was ok, a bit dry and the cream and jam in the centre were a mix of too sugary and very tart. i left half of it over as i felt like i was wasting calories by continuing to eat it which should never happen with a dessert.
now the food was A-​OK the small bites platter really being the best! had i only had that alone my review might have been slightly higher. however, the like the other dishes i had the service lacked a bit. we ordered prosecco and ended up pouring it for ourselves the whole night which is not what i would expect. it took ages for a waitress to notice we were trying to ask for the bill and one of the waitresses seemed to be a bit confused about it all, but maybe she was new.
that said though, i would probably come back here to get the small bites board. the prices are quite reasonable, only paying £27 for three courses and splitting two bottles of prosecco. so all in all not too bad, but not great either.

I was in two minds as to how to rate The Roamin’ Nose. There are a number of elements I look for when going for a bite to eat in the evening with a couple of friends. Ambience, service, price, menu and most importantly the food!
So rather than waffle aimlessly I’ll break into the elements outlined above.
Ambience — Chilled, relaxed and definitely a quaint place to go for a gossip over vino with the girls.
Service — Average unfortunately. The staff are really quite nice but not the quickest off the block. It sounds fussy but we ordered a couple of bottles of nice fizz and we had to pour it ourselves (obviously not a massive issue but it made me unsure of what kind of place they wanted to be).
Price — Excellent. 3 girls, 3 course and 2 bottles of wine £27 each… not too bad in my book.
Menu — Limited and a number of things weren’t available which is disappointing on a board that already offers so little.
Food — Good in places. The taster board that they offer was excellent. Lots of bread and tasty dips, meats, cheese to go with. A must have at The Roamin’ Nose I would say. I ordered the Carbonara for main and I have to say the salt and pepper pots were used quite heavily as it really did lack flavour and the pasta was a little too al dente. For dessert I had the Chocolate Mousse which was lovely and smooth and the perfect end to an evening.
Overall I’ve marked this a 4 as it has the potential to be an Edinburgh staple but it really needs to sort out a few of the basics…

A tremendous addition to the eateries opening up around the Canonmills area. There is an Italian theme to the bistro but it isn’t just the usual fare that would be expected. Starting with a fantastic breakfast until 11am (the sausages on thick white toast are tremendous) through to lunchtime snacking and evening meals, there are options for every type of eating.
The coffee is fantastic quality and challenges many of the leading coffee houses in Edinburgh for quality and there is also a small but impressive selection of beers including Innis & Gunn.
Highly recommended and hopefully a long-​term addition to New Town eating.

Freshly opened on Eyre Place, The Roamin’ Nose is beginning its journey as a new café/​bistro. The Italian-​influenced menu is quite varied, with a good selection of sandwiches, sharing platters, pasta dishes, and a couple of main courses. It’s an eclectic mix in terms of décor, too. It was nicely busy on my visit, and I know they’re looking to raise their profile, so it’s a place worth keeping an eye on, as it has the potential to become a real favourite.
Overall, we said: «I’d happily recommend that you pay The Roamin’ Nose a visit. I have no doubt that they’ll iron out the service kinks, soon, so will have things running beautifully. As with many new places, I’m not sure they’ve quite nailed where to pitch themselves, yet. I’d suggest that they’re not really a place for lunchtime takeaway, but more the kind of location where you’d sit with friends, nibbling at fresh bread dipped in good olive oil, maybe adding a little slice of cheese, a sliver of prosciutto, or a slice of roasted aubergine, as you while away an afternoon or evening. I can imagine many return visit to do just that, in the future.»