Reviews of Edinburgh’s Dining Scene
Established in July 2011, Lunchquest aimed to give readers an insight in to Edinburgh’s vibrant lunch and dining scene. Populated by the fantastic reviews (mostly) by Blythe, we posted something new almost every day of the year.
With well over 2,500 posts under our belts, we published our fourth annual Guide to Edinburgh in August 2015.
There wasn’t a place that serves food that didn’t review. We covered as broad a range of places as we could, from the Michelin star finery of places like Castle Terrace to the humble burger van, and everything in between.
We tried to eat out (or get takeaway) from as many different places as the bank manager would allow, took pictures of what we’ve been served, and offered a few words to describe things. We rated on four categories:
- Food – what does it taste like;
- Presentation – what does it look like;
- Setting – what does the place that serves the food look like; and
- Service – how do the people serving the food serve it.
We used this method to reflect our overall experience, as considerations beyond what food is on offer often need to be made when choosing a dining venue. Some places might serve knockout food, but are a little down-at-heel, so are perhaps not where you might wish to go for an intimate interlude. Equally, some very swish places serve very mediocre grub, so you might prefer to go there for a light snack, just drinks, or with people you don’t like.
Edinburgh has hundreds of restaurants, bars, cafés and eateries in the city centre alone, and places are always opening, closing (sometimes sadly, sometimes gladly), or changing hands and direction so we had our work cut out over the years to keep track of all the goings-on.
We now only very occasionally post reviews of our chosen lunch and dining spots.
We’ve added a lot of new and exciting features over the years, for your entertainment pleasure. These all still live on the site, including content from Our Beer Man, pre-theatre options. Have you checked out Soupquest, yet? What about Espresso Quest? We also have a page featuring the best of Edinburgh street food.
I think this work reached its peak when we were listed as must follow foodies on a Buzzfeed list. That’s winning right there…
For now, keep on enjoying your lunch and dining experiences, and let us know if you find good new places for us to explore. We’ve still gotta eat.
