If ever there was a wonderfully topsy-turvy pub for girls like Alice, it would be the Roseleaf Bar: Café in Leith.
Squeezed in around a tag-sale table, in a cozy back corner of this local pub, we took our “tea” in a motley collection of vintage china teacups, filled with ice and classic cocktail garnishes, and delivered by a handsome young bartender.
“When you order two or more of the same drink, we bung them in a teapot,” says publican Jonny Kane, concocting his signature “pot-tails” in an array of old teapots behind a bar bristling with local beer taps. “It's not designed to put off men, but it is a pub for mostly females.”
High tea packs a punch at the Roseleaf Bar: Café.
In Canada, we're famed for serving tea, but booze in teapots usually falls into the realm of the unlicensed Chinese restaurant. Here at Scotland's quirky little Roseleaf pub, they offer a tea party like no other. You can order vodka and homemade lemonade with rose water (a Rose Water O'Leith); Chambord, bubbly and passion fruit liqueur (a Fruit Tingle), or even a muddle of their homemade ginger beer and rum, served over ice in an old-fashioned cup and saucer – and poured from a flowery porcelain pot.
In winter, there are steamy “pot-toddies” or even “pot shots” – four or eight shots of your favourite shooters, served in a pot with tiny espresso cups – and in summer, pots of boozy punch. They do their “adult high tea” any time, or you can book their Mad Hatter's Tea Party, complete with “sandwiches and fairy cakes” (cupcakes), and a selection of wacky antique hats to wear to enhance the mad, girly mood.
Kane and his wife, Lyn, revived the historic Black Swan pub in the once crime-ridden port area of Leith (think Trainspotting) by filling it with eclectic antiques and serving a family-friendly all-day menu featuring locally sourced, organic foods, from Funky Beans on Organic Toast with a free-range egg for breakfast, to a Ploughman's Platter with their own spicy onion jam and pickled shallots.
While the drugs and prostitution are gone, Leith still has its edge, says Kane, a burly former navy man, and that's what makes it an interesting neighbourhood to explore. A short 10-minute drive from downtown Edinburgh, the old seaport is now a hip corner of town, where old stone whisky bonds (warehouses) have been repurposed into chic flats and offices that look out across the Firth of Forth. Now you can bed down in a cool Malmaison Hotel (once a seamen's hostel) or dine at The Kitchin, chef Tom Kitchin's stylish one-star Michelin restaurant on the water's edge.
“It's only in the last very few years that the ladies of the night disappeared, but things have really been cleaned up,” says Kitchin, serving a perfect appetizer of local razor clams (spoots) and squid, garnished with sweet slivers of dried lime, and crisply fried filets of red mullet with salty samphire and bright green peas in an intense langoustine broth.
“The place was pretty run-down and rough,” he adds. “I imagine they'd be very surprised to see foie gras in Leith, but there's been a phenomenal revolution here.”
There's nothing rough or seedy about the dockside streets any more – the Water of Leith Walkway skirts the Pentland hills, following the river's edge through the city. At the nearby Ship on the Shore, diners crowd outdoor tables along the street, downing platters of fresh oysters, big bowls of steamy local mussels, Scottish lobster, scallops and Arbroath Smokies, with bottles of house champagne.
“Leith is actually like a small town, attached to Edinburgh, with a funkier, more youthful feel to it,” Kitchin says of this eclectic corner of the city by the sea.
The Royal Yacht Britannia is now permanently moored here, and at the Royal Deck Tea Room, you can peek into the lives of the rich and famous, or stop for a cuppa. But it's not as much fun as the boozy pot-tails at the Roseleaf.
“It's a bohemian area, and we try to shake every stigma,” Kane says, draining another fruity concoction into a mismatched cup and saucer.
Whether you're looking for fresh seafood, chic shops or funky local pubs that offer topsy-turvy tea, Leith is a wonderland for wandering. Alice would approve.
Special to The Globe and Mail
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Pack your bags
Where to stay
Malmaison Hotel, Leith 1 Tower Place; www.malmaison-edinburgh.com. From about $130. A boutique hotel right in the centre of town; its great little brasserie/bar has a water view.
Where to eat
Roseleaf Bar: Café 23-24 Sandport Pl.; www.roseleaf.co.uk. A Leith institution. Fresh and local comfort food (smoked cheddar mac and cheese, homemade scones and jam) and creative cocktails served in garage-sale china.
The Kitchin 78 Commercial Quay; www.thekitchin.com. Chef Tom Kitchin's theme is “from nature to plate.” Six months after opening, he was awarded a Michelin star for his modern Scottish cuisine. A stylish room in a converted whisky warehouse.
C.C.
