When Bono Coffee opened on South Clerk Street earlier this year, taking over the site of Indiba café-bar, word had spread on social media, and curious passers-by had clearly spotted the clean square sign outside and liked what they saw.
The first weeks brought considerable waves of custom. Those early days, co-owner Alejandro Castillo now freely admits, were not without difficulty. “I feel I should apologise to those who came on the first day,” he said. “We weren’t really ready and hadn’t dialled in our coffees sufficiently.” Having visited twice in that opening week and enjoyed the coffees I had, I feel Alejandro is being unfair to himself, but it indicates Bono’s desire to deliver high standards.
Several months on, Bono is more settled, producing the goods much more consistently.
The Space
The interior, designed by SPLINTR, is clean and light, making good use of the room. The deep dark wood of the bar and tables gives the place a solidity and draws the eye; for anyone who likes to write or read in a café, those tables have just the right satisfying weight to them. Two sets of window seats look out onto this busy stretch of road, popular with pairs and couples who want to watch the world go by. A jazz soundtrack adds to the mood without intruding.
Several tables are marked laptop-free, which produces something not every coffee place manages: people actually talking to each other. On a recent morning visit, arriving early enough to catch the calm before the wave that builds around eleven, there was no sense of envious eyes hovering over your table waiting for you to go. Coming back on a busier midmorning, the place was full but not chaotic. Conversations overlapped, someone was reading in the corner, and the door kept opening. That absence of pressure is not something you find everywhere.
Bono is managed by siblings Daniela and Alejandro Castillo Valdes. Alejandro, originally from a small town in Mexico, came to Edinburgh to study and has lived here for several years. The idea for the café grew between the two of them, with the aim of creating a space that felt open to everyone. It does.
The Coffee
The house roast is a Brazilian Sul de Minas from Obadiah, the Abbeyhill-based roasters who have built a strong reputation. It produces a satisfyingly dense cup, earthy rather than excessively fruity. The dark chocolate and sweet cherry profile comes through clearly in a cortado. On a more recent visit, a long black arrived smooth and without the metallic edge that too often comes with such drinks. Coffee writer James Hoffmann has attributed that fault to the habit of adding boiling water directly to espresso; it was not a problem here.
Alejandro is candid about how long consistency takes to achieve. The variability between different beans means dialling in is an ongoing process. It shows in the cup now. The baristas know what they are doing.
Decaf can be a test that separates the serious places from the merely adequate. Bono takes it seriously. On a recent visit the barista confirmed that theirs was “well dialled in”, and so it proved: a companion who is currently cutting his caffeine intake was sufficiently impressed to order two. Nudo teas are also on offer, alongside a selection of bakery items. A Greek-style orange pie has been one of their more tempting offerings.
El Sol Sale Para Todos
When I asked Alejandro about operating in a competitive stretch of the city, with Onto further along the road and Cult a short distance away, he was relaxed — welcoming, even. He used a phrase common in Mexico: El sol sale para todos, “the sun rises for everyone.” The meaning is that one business doing well does not take anything away from another; there is room for all of them. He would much rather have Onto and Cult nearby than a Starbucks or a Black Sheep Coffee.
In this part of Edinburgh, the sentiment holds up. Bono, Onto, and Cult are all consistently busy, each with a slightly different feel, offering coffees by different roasters. Alejandro’s preference for independents over chains is partly about atmosphere and partly about standards: specialty coffee places push each other, and customers in an area with several good options tend to develop more discerning tastes. Having Onto and Cult nearby helps this.
The one exception Alejandro noted was an unusually sunny Friday, when the population of the area seemed to decamp wholesale to the Meadows. He went and had a quiet look at the neighbouring places, to check whether it was just Bono sitting empty that afternoon. It was not. Every café on the stretch was in the same position. Fortunately, Edinburgh does not hand out too many such Fridays.
This arc — from an intense opening period to a steadier pattern — plays out at new coffee places all over the city. Cafen on Dundas Street is the obvious example: the corner queues at weekends in those first months are long gone, and what remains is a café that consistently serves some of the best coffee in Edinburgh. Bono seems to be heading the same way.
Worth Noting
One detail that catches people’s attention is the card dispenser near the door. It holds six designs by artist Eve Tong, some featuring Bono-related imagery, others showing Edinburgh scenes, and it dispenses them at random. That randomness gives it an addictive quality; a swap shop may eventually be required.
This stretch of South Clerk Street now has some genuinely excellent options for specialty coffee. Bono has earned its place among them.
Bono Coffee, 88 South Clerk Street, EH8 9PT
