Category: Newington

A thought struck me as I sat in Usher’s on a recent Friday afternoon. I’ve not been to Khushi’s, one of Edinburgh’s most famous Indian restaurants, very often but I have been to it in a total of four different locations as it’s moved around the city. It suddenly made me realise I’ve been back in the capital for nearly 10 years now. One of its locations was in this very space on West Nicolson Street. I also remembered sitting in this place when it was Centraal and trying my first fruit beer in the mid-noughties. How time flies. Back to the present though – what of this place’s newest incarnation – Usher’s?

I love the idea of the pub being a place for debate. While a lot of discussion may happen online these days, there’s nothing like a spirited in-pub discussion. Of course, there’s been no bigger debate in Scotland lately than the Independence Referendum. And if there was any doubt in how engaged people were with it, you need only have been in Sandy Bell’s on the eve of the referendum where debate, both national and international, was complemented by the folk music that this pub is famous for.

A number of years ago when I first considered penning an Edinburgh pub blog, I managed to write two whole reviews. One of them was of the Greenmantle (one word or two, I’m not sure?) in Newington. I was reminded of this recently when myself and Mrs Bar Fly found ourselves in here prior to a forensics lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons, a free event that was part of the Science Festival. I was reminded that it’s a nice pub, a fun pub. It’s not THE best pub in Edinburgh but it has a lot going for it, from buffalo burgers to a very active quiz community.

Fact sheet. It’s not a phrase you hear very often – it takes me back to a time before the internet when television shows would often urge you to send in an SAE to receive a “fact sheet”. Back to a time when John Leslie was presenting Blue Peter and posing outside this pub on Causewayside, claiming that it was named in his honour. Back to a time when this pub looked, well, exactly as it does today. Leslie’s is a fantastic looking pub and if you ask the bar staff, they will furnish you with a fact sheet to answer all your questions. It’s a first for me, I have to admit. It may look good but is it a decent boozer?