Relish

A busy café and deli with a reputation for excellent homemade cakes, vegan dishes and a focus on ethical sourcing.

The 2019/20 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £5.95 (+p&p).

A door in one half of this double-fronted space leads to the busy counter area, which boasts a couple of stools. But there’s more to Relish than first meets the eye, with a larger seating area next door and a mezzanine floor too. Breakfast is served until noon and all day at weekends, while at lunchtime the focus is on daily changing soups and a wide variety of sandwiches. And, once the midday rush has passed, it’s back to coffee – supplied by Dear Green – and homemade cakes, as those with more time on their hands select from the mountain of goodies on display and linger a while.

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Relish is the local deli if you're based at Leith's Shore, where you can call in for coffee and a croissant on the way to work and pick up a nice bottle of wine or beer on the way home afterwards. A decent selection of hand-cut cheese, charcuterie and olives sits alongside vegetables and dried products, and there’s a well picked, though not enormous, range of useful cupboard-fillers: jams, condiments, biscuits, tea and coffee. Soup and freshly made-up sandwiches can be taken away or eaten in at one of a handful of seats.