Grassmarket and Cowgate nightlife: the definitive guide
Edinburgh: pub crawl 7 bars with 6 free shots
What is the Grassmarket and Cowgate like at night?
The Grassmarket has Edinburgh's most atmospheric pub setting, with the castle above and medieval buildings around a cobbled square. The Cowgate below it is the late-night district — student bars, clubs, and live music in vaulted basements running under the Royal Mile bridges.
Two streets, two atmospheres
The Grassmarket and the Cowgate occupy the same piece of Edinburgh geography but feel completely different at night. The Grassmarket is an open cobbled square running east from the West Port, framed by tall tenement buildings on three sides and the dramatic silhouette of Edinburgh Castle above. It is one of the most visually striking settings for a drink in any city in Britain: the castle lit up above, the medieval buildings around you, the old pub signs swinging in whatever wind Edinburgh is serving that evening.
The Cowgate runs immediately below, passing under the South Bridge and George IV Bridge viaducts in a canyon of stone arches and basement venues. It is darker, louder, more underground — literally and figuratively. The Cowgate is where Edinburgh goes after the Grassmarket closes, and in August it barely closes at all.
Understanding the character of each, and how they connect, is the key to planning an evening in this part of the Old Town.
The Grassmarket: pubs and early evening
Getting there and the layout
The Grassmarket is about 10 minutes on foot from Princes Street via Victoria Street or via the West Port. The square itself is about 300 metres long, with pubs along the north and south sides and restaurant terraces taking up the middle ground in summer. The castle looms directly to the north; the Cowgate descends to the east.
The pubs
The White Hart Inn (34 Grassmarket): The oldest pub on its original licence in Edinburgh. Burns reportedly stayed here; Wordsworth visited. The building dates from 1516. The pint is good and the price is fair by central Edinburgh standards. Start here.
Biddy Mulligans (94 Grassmarket): Traditional Irish-style pub with consistently good draught options and outdoor seating that fills the Grassmarket pavement on warm evenings. Reliable and sociable.
The Last Drop (74–78 Grassmarket): Named with characteristic Edinburgh gallows humour for the public executions that took place in the square. Good whisky selection, decent food until 9pm, and a first-floor function room that takes group bookings.
Maggie Dickson’s (92 Grassmarket): Named after the eighteenth-century Edinburgh woman who survived her own hanging. A lively, young-ish crowd on weekend evenings; straightforward drinks menu.
Cold Town House (4 Grassmarket): The newest major venue on the Grassmarket. Ground-floor bar and restaurant plus a rooftop terrace with one of Edinburgh’s best outdoor views of the castle. The beer selection focuses on Cold Town’s own craft range plus guest Scottish taps. Weather-dependent for the terrace but one of Edinburgh’s finest outdoor drinking spots when conditions allow.
The Grassmarket in context
The Grassmarket has been one of Edinburgh’s principal public spaces for centuries — a livestock market, an execution ground, and a commercial hub. The modern bar scene sits on top of this history with varying levels of awareness. The pubs themselves tend not to lean into the historical aspect, leaving that to the tourist information boards and the ghost tour operators who congregate nearby.
For the tourist-trap context — what to avoid buying in the Grassmarket’s souvenir shops and where the overpriced tourist restaurants are — see the honest guide to shopping on the Royal Mile. The restaurants along the south side of the Grassmarket vary significantly in quality; the pubs are more reliably good than the restaurants.
The Cowgate: the late-night district
The Cowgate descends from the Grassmarket level via steps at the east end of the square, or via the Cowgate itself from King’s Bridge. At night it feels like a different city from the Grassmarket — the viaducts create a covered, sheltered canyon atmosphere, and the venues tend to be basement or underground spaces rather than ground-level pubs.
Three Sisters (139 Cowgate)
The Three Sisters is the Cowgate’s biggest venue and the most reliably busy late-night option in the area. Large bar, multiple rooms, outdoor courtyard (heated in winter), and live music and club nights on weekends. The crowd is mixed — students, tourists, locals — and the atmosphere is reliably sociable if not particularly refined. Good for groups who want energy and volume; less good for a quiet drink.
Brewdog (56 Cowgate)
A large converted vault space with the consistent Brewdog craft beer selection and a few guest taps. More comfortable than some Cowgate venues, open late, and a good backup when the more atmospheric options are full.
Bannerman’s Bar (212 Cowgate)
The rock bar. Bannerman’s occupies several interconnected vault spaces further east along the Cowgate, toward Holyrood, and has a commitment to live music programming (most nights from 9pm) that makes it the most interesting venue for music-focused visitors. Cover charges on ticketed nights run £5–£10.
Cabaret Voltaire (36–38 Blair Street)
Off the Cowgate proper but part of the same late-night circuit. Underground, atmospheric, programming that genuinely varies between electronic club nights, live music, and occasional arts events. One of Edinburgh’s most interesting club venues in terms of what it books.
Sneaky Pete’s (73 Cowgate)
The Cowgate’s boutique club. Small (capacity around 150), well-programmed for electronic and dance music, with a regular audience who follow the bookings rather than just showing up because it is on the street. If the DJ listing means nothing to you, Sneaky Pete’s is not the obvious choice; if you follow the electronic music scene, it is one of Edinburgh’s best nights out.
Organised pub crawls in this area
The Grassmarket and Cowgate are the backbone of most organised Edinburgh pub crawl routes. The Edinburgh pub crawl with seven bars and six free shots typically runs through the Grassmarket and Cowgate area, with the guide handling the navigation between venues. For groups who want to combine the area’s bars without getting lost in the geography, this is a practical option.
The seven-bar crawl with seven shots and discounts is the competing option — read recent reviews to see which currently has better guides.
Combining the area with other evening activities
The Grassmarket and Cowgate are well positioned for combining with other evening activities in the Old Town:
Ghost tours: The Grassmarket is the starting point for several Edinburgh ghost tours, and several operators use Cowgate and Grassmarket locations as key stops. The underground vaults ghost tour with whisky starts in the vaults beneath the South Bridge — accessible from the Cowgate end. A ghost tour at 7–8pm followed by the Grassmarket pubs and Cowgate clubs later is a classic Edinburgh evening structure.
Comedy: Monkey Barrel Comedy is on Blair Street, steps from the Cowgate. See the comedy guide for show times and booking.
Late food: The Grassmarket restaurants vary in quality; the more reliable options are slightly off-square on Victoria Street or the West Port. If you want to eat in the Grassmarket area later in the evening, the bar menus at the Three Sisters and Cold Town House are better value than the dedicated restaurant terraces.
The history in the cobblestones: what the Grassmarket was
The Grassmarket’s nightlife sits on top of 500 years of Edinburgh commercial and criminal history. It was Edinburgh’s principal public execution site from the fifteenth century to the early eighteenth; over 100 people were hanged here on the gallows that stood in the centre of the square. William Burke and William Hare, the 1820s serial killers who sold bodies to Edinburgh’s medical schools, lived in and around the Grassmarket. The White Hart Inn was already 300 years old when Robert Burns visited; the square was a weekly livestock market that drew farmers from across the Lothians.
This history is not merely decorative. The names of the pubs (The Last Drop, Maggie Dickson’s) are direct references to it, and the physical architecture — the tall tenements that crowd in on three sides, the castle overhead, the closes that run up to the Royal Mile — is essentially unchanged from the nineteenth century. Walking through the Grassmarket at night, with the castle floodlit above and the pub lights reflecting off the cobblestones, is one of those Edinburgh experiences that works because the city’s history and present are genuinely layered on top of each other rather than artificially recreated.
The Cowgate had its own history: it was originally a drove road into Edinburgh for cattle, and later became a densely populated working-class district. The South Bridge and George IV Bridge viaducts were built over the valley in the early nineteenth century, creating the overhead structure that now gives the Cowgate its distinctive character — a street that is half-underground, with the underside of the bridges forming the ceiling and the daylight visible only at either end.
The underground vaults that ghost tour operators use are in the arches of South Bridge, accessed from the Cowgate level. They were originally used for storage and small workshops; by the nineteenth century they had become some of Edinburgh’s most squalid housing for the city’s poorest residents. Today they are a significant Edinburgh attraction. The underground vaults guide covers the history and the various tour operators in full.
August in the Grassmarket and Cowgate
During the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, the Grassmarket and Cowgate become perhaps the most concentrated nightlife zone in Scotland. The Three Sisters operates as a major Fringe venue with outdoor performances on its forecourt; the pubs are packed from 5pm; buskers and street performers occupy the square itself from noon; and the general noise level increases by approximately 30 decibels for the entire month.
The character changes in a way that is worth understanding before you go. In July or September, the Grassmarket has a pleasant mix of tourists and locals; in August, it is overwhelmingly tourists and Fringe participants. The energy is exceptional but the experience of finding a quiet corner for a conversation is essentially impossible. The venues become organised chaos; staff are stretched; and queuing is normal for previously walk-in pubs.
If you are in Edinburgh in August, the Grassmarket and Cowgate remain essential — the atmosphere is unique and the sheer volume of what is happening is extraordinary. But manage expectations about comfort and intimacy. See the August in Edinburgh guide for strategies.
The Grassmarket during daylight: the context
At night the Grassmarket is primarily a drinking district. During the day it is one of Edinburgh’s best street-market areas — a weekend market runs on Saturdays with food, craft, and vintage stalls that makes the Grassmarket worth visiting outside its pub hours. The Victoria Street shops (independent boutiques, chocolate shops, bookshops) along the curved street above the Grassmarket are some of Edinburgh’s best for browsing.
The Grassmarket destination guide covers the full picture including daytime options, the history, and the connections to the Old Town more broadly.
Eating in the Grassmarket and Cowgate: honest assessment
The restaurants in and around the Grassmarket range from reliably good to actively tourist-trap. Here is an honest assessment, without the paid partnerships.
The Grassmarket square proper: The restaurants with outdoor terraces on the Grassmarket square — those with laminated menus, prominent Scottish-flag theming, and haggis prominently featured — are operating primarily on location rather than quality. The food is edible; the prices are elevated for what you get; the service reflects a venue that handles very high turnover. These are not the places to eat in Edinburgh.
The better options:
Maison Bleue (36-38 Victoria Street): French cuisine in a basement on Victoria Street, 2 minutes from the Grassmarket. The food is consistently good and the prices are reasonable for central Edinburgh. Reservations recommended on weekend evenings.
The White Hart Inn (34 Grassmarket): The pub food here is better than the tourist-pub setting suggests. Traditional Scottish pub food — pies, stovies, chips — cooked properly at pub prices.
Spoon (6a Nicholson Street, a short walk south): A bespoke Edinburgh café-restaurant, excellent for lunch. Worth the slight detour from the Grassmarket.
The Halfway House (24 Fleshmarket Close): Technically on Fleshmarket Close off the Royal Mile rather than in the Grassmarket, but accessed easily from the Cowgate level. A tiny pub with good bar food and an excellent pint.
For post-pub food options after midnight: Edinburgh is not London in terms of late-night eating options. Kebab places and fast food chains on the South Bridge and Nicholson Street serve the post-club crowd. Mother India in Infirmary Street is late-night Indian food of noticeably better quality than the average. Greggs (several city centre locations) closes at midnight on weekends.
What to do if the Grassmarket is too crowded
On busy August weekends, the Grassmarket can become genuinely uncomfortable — the kind of crowding that makes it difficult to move between venues or find a seat inside any of the main pubs. When this happens, the alternatives within a short walk are these:
Walk west along the Grassmarket to Cowgatehead and then up the West Bow to Victoria Street. The pubs above the Grassmarket level (Biddy Mulligans, the Last Drop) are accessible from Victoria Street with less crowding than the square itself.
Cross to the Southside: Forrest Road and the area around Sandy Bell’s is 5 minutes on foot from the Grassmarket via Greyfriars Bobby’s corner. The atmosphere is calmer; the folk music at Sandy Bell’s continues regardless of how busy the Grassmarket is.
Go north to the New Town: 10–15 minutes on foot via the Mound takes you to Rose Street and George Street, where the Fringe crowd is thinner and the bars are more accessible on August weekends.
Practical information
Getting there: 10 minutes on foot from Princes Street. From the Royal Mile, take one of the closes heading south (Advocate’s Close, Parliament Close) or walk down the Mound and along Castlehill to the West Bow.
Best nights: Thursday through Saturday for the most activity. Sunday is quiet on the Cowgate but the Grassmarket pubs are relaxed and good for an afternoon drink.
Safety: The area is generally safe throughout the evening. It gets busy and rowdy on Friday and Saturday nights; the usual city-centre sensible precautions apply. The cobblestones are physically challenging after several drinks.
Getting home: Multiple Lothian Bus routes pass the Grassmarket and Cowgate area. Night buses run Friday and Saturday. Taxis are available outside most venues at closing time; Uber is active throughout the city centre.
Frequently asked questions about Grassmarket and Cowgate nightlife
What time does the Grassmarket get busy?
The Grassmarket pubs begin to fill from around 7–8pm. Peak activity is 9–11pm. The Cowgate venues get going later — 10pm onward — and some clubs are busy until 3am.
Is the Cowgate safe at night?
The Cowgate is Edinburgh’s main late-night club district and is busy on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Like any concentrated nightlife area, it has the occasional incident; it is not inherently unsafe but does warrant the same common sense you would apply anywhere busy and loud after midnight.
Are there any good restaurants in the Grassmarket?
Yes, though the best options are slightly off-square. Maison Bleue on Victoria Street (French cuisine, excellent value) and The White Hart Inn itself (traditional pub food, good portions) are both reliable. The dedicated terrace restaurants in the Grassmarket square proper are more variable in quality and tend toward tourist-facing menus.
Is the area suitable for families during the day?
The Grassmarket is family-friendly during the day — open space, market stalls on Saturdays, accessible cafés. The evening pub and club atmosphere is not family-oriented. Early evening (before 8pm) is fine for families with older children; late evening is adults-only in atmosphere if not in policy.
Top experiences
Bookable activities with verified prices and instant confirmation on GetYourGuide.
