The Newsroom Bar & Eatery

The 2013 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £5.95 (+p&p).

This review is taken from the current (2013) edition.

In our age of smart phones, Twitter, citizen journalism and plummeting newspaper sales, theming a bar on a newsroom seems almost quaint. But while the newly refurbed Newsroom plays a certain homage to hot metal with famous front page wallpaper and a prevailing black and white decor, for the most part the place just gets on with being a popular after-work hangout and fashionable pre-club bar, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays with DJs playing 5pm–1am. On the same evenings the 511 club in the basement is raising its profile all the time with some respected nights. The new look, with its striking row upon row of large jars, each with a glowing light filament inside, is accompanied by a significant emphasis on food under new chef Eoin Wilson. The menu offers keenly priced fish and chips or burgers along with more ambitious roast vegetable, bean and lentil stew with herb dumplings, haggis fritters or colourful Spanish tortilla, with an eye kept on the small details, such as homemade mayo or the daily order of pastries from the Sicilian Pastry Shop a few blocks down Leith Walk.

• High point: A place that's out to get noticed
• Low point: It gets noticed by lots of people on Friday and Saturday nights