Little Fitzroy in Easter Road is a top destination for coffee lovers in the city.
I’m often asked what I consider to be the best place for specialty coffee in Edinburgh. This includes those already familiar with specialty coffee. I’m also asked by people from other countries who have grown up with a different style of coffee (e.g. Italian style espresso), where they can best sample top quality ‘third wave’ coffee.
Luckily there has been massive growth in this sphere, especially over the last 10 years or so. Led by the likes of Artisan Roast, Edinburgh now has plenty of places which serve high calibre speciality coffee. But what is the best place? There were plenty I would recommend, with good new places arriving on the scene every few months.
Highly promising new arrivals include Beatnik in Tollcross (in Machina Espresso’s old location at 2 Brougham Place). What, in my mind, distinguishes between the merely very good places and the truly excellent is consistency. Making good espresso is not easy, as the coffee YouTuber and writer James Hoffman reiterates – including in his recent book How to Make the Best Coffee at Home. The variables involved in ‘dialling in’ (calibrating your equipment to ensure full extraction) espresso make it a constant challenge to produce the goods.
Any list of the very elite places in Edinburgh would have to include Little Fitzroy on Easter Road. Strongly influenced by the renowned Melbourne coffee scene, this place receives consistently excellent reviews. It is also regularly mentioned by others in the coffee world.
For example Dean James, who has more than 12-years experience in the Edinburgh speciality coffee scene, believes that Little Fitzroy is a place where the baristas ‘really know how to pull good espresso’. Maintaining a team of good baristas is something that many specialty cafes in Edinburgh struggle to do (many cafes are currently ‘looking for a skilled and experienced barista to join our small friendly team’).
Little Fitzroy seems to have been able to pull this off. This has been born out by my own experience. In my half a dozen visits, what I’ve been served has been truly superb.
On a recent visit, the syrupy and rich coffee I was served contained flavours which rolled around my mouth as I made my way down to Leith Links and the quiet, calming Restalrig Railway Path. On my last visit, Obadiah Coffee’s Kibingo beans were used to produce a stunning piccolo, with bold yet refined flavours containing elements of cranberries and caramel.
A visit to Little Fitzroy also reveals a real sense of comradeship and teamwork among the baristas. There’s a lovely energy to the place. The character of Little Fitzroy is transmitted in their lively and entertaining social media posts. They clearly enjoy their work and remain passionate about providing the best coffee they can.
To do so they use a variety of beans from well renowned Scottish roasters, such as Common, Fortitude, Glen Lyon and Obadiah. This keeps a nice element of variety in the coffee they serve, but not inconsistency in terms of quality. Quite the opposite.
Little Fitzroy is clearly plugged into the wider specialist coffee scene, with some of their baristas participating in the recent Glasgow Coffee Festival. This is evidence that they wish to keep evolving their skills. Little Fitzroy is relatively small and is currently take-away only.
The substantial queues that form outside reflect the quality of what they produce. People often baulk at the prices charged for coffee these days (well over three quid in many places). When you are paying good money, quality really should be high. Too often it is not. At Little Fitzroy, your money is well spent.
This top section of Easter Road has, in recent years, become a real mecca for those seeking ‘artisanal’ food and coffee. A recent Guardian profile of the area relates how the area is increasingly dubbed ‘Feaster Road’. Cinnamon buns, sourdough are rarely more than a few metres away.
Little Fitzroy itself offer a nice range of sandwiches, salads and baking. The area has clearly changed radically but still retains the social mix that is essential to a place like Leith. It’s not lost its unique character. Little Fitzroy adds greatly to the brew. Head there for some of the finest, most skilfully brewed speciality coffee in Scotland.
Little Fitzroy, 46 Easter Road, EH7 5PJ.
