Edinburgh coffee talk

Living outside of the city centre doesn’t leave the most options when it comes to specialist coffee, and on this specific Saturday morning me and my partner Kate where craving just that. A quick scan of google maps and we decided to take a morning stroll into town, planning to try out fortitude on Newington Road on the way in. With three locations in Edinburgh it’s a spot I had always heard of but never visited, often passing it on the bus while on my way into the city centre, I went in as a first time customer and walked out a pending regular, so lets get into why i think this place is more than worth the visit.

Walking in, there was a lot to take in. The cafe looks sizably small from the outside but inside there is a respectable amount of seating. We went in around 30 minutes after they opened; despite the early time, the vibes seemed great, staff were friendly, there was some good background music, and it was all elevated by what is a lovely looking cafe with art on the walls, a window looking out to the road, they also had a shelf full of coffee products and their own coffee for sale, and of course a delicious pastry selection on display.

Despite a large selection of coffee, pastries, and other things like granola and teas to pick from, we managed to make our decision in a surprisingly fast manner (for us). Starting with pastries, I chose the blueberry polenta, and Kate went with the pistachio and lemon curd. Going close to their opening time, I had good expectations that the pastries would be fresh. They were; we decided to go halves on each other’s. The polenta was soft and fluffy, with the sugar on top giving it a fantastic texture and the blueberries adding to the sweetness, while the pistachio and lemon curd shared the same qualities but with a lovely thicker cream on top with a punch of lemon followed with and after taste of pistachio.

For our coffee, I got a cortado while Kate went with a dirty chai latte. My cortado was fantastic; the espresso was a great strength and tasted wonderful. It gains bonus points for presentation; it’s not often in Edinburgh you find good latte art on a cortado. In fact, it’s rare to even find places serving cortados in the correct cups. The cortado I had definitely earned its spot on top of the best I have had, but even then, it was the chai that stole the show. It came in a metal jug with a strainer so you could pour it into your mug fresh. I’d seen and tried some nice chai before, but this presentation was next level. I was lucky enough to grab a small sip; It had an extremely earthy/natural taste, very refreshing. If you want to see what this looked like check the video below.

The pouring of the chai and my cortado.

Our visit to Fortitude was lovely, the presentation with our coffee was great and the staff were quick with our food and drinks. The cafe itself was very ‘cutesy’ with a good amount of seating available, a place to help yourself to water, artwork put up around the cafe and even some coffee products on sale and their own coffee for anybody who may be interested. With 3 locations spread over Edinburgh on Newington Road, Abbey Mount and Hamilton Place, I would have to call this place a must-visit. Speaking from our visit to the Newington location, it’s a great place to sit in; me and Kate both managed to get some morning studying in and then head off into town, but if you’re working in town it would also be a great spot to grab a coffee and pastry on your way in.

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