Café Royal Circle Bar

The building dates to 1861, built as a showroom for gas fittings and sanitary ware before becoming the Café Royal Hotel in 1863. The oval island bar and the six Doulton tile portraits of Victorian inventors — Caxton, Stephenson, Franklin, Watt, Peel, Faraday — were added later, in a renovation in the 1890s, and they're most of the reason people still detour here rather than into any other New Town pub.

The Circle Bar itself is standing-room and first-come for drinks; the attached restaurant, serving oysters and a fairly traditional Scottish menu, takes bookings. Either way, the room — tile, brass, dark wood, barely changed in over a century — is most of the appeal.

Have a drink at the bar first if you can, then decide whether the restaurant's worth sitting down for; the two halves of the building have noticeably different personalities.