Reviews Element

Unassuming from the outside, warm and inviting inside. Great range of drinks and draft craft beer. Simple and brief menu but well served and delicious. Very accommodating with my three children. Beautiful decor in the rear dining room. Excellent in all respects.

Popped in here with my wife for a meal, and absolutely loved it. Tasty food, wonderful staff, and warm, welcoming atmosphere. Young girl who served us was terrific. Have passed on details to friends. Will definitely return. Thank you all.

Been following this place on Insta for months and decided to go try them out. Loved the experience. Had a great pub lunch with whiskey. Great warm food and salad. Well priced and lots of options for vegetarians. Fish and chips, soup, salad, toasties. Enjoyed our meal very much.

We frequently go here during lunch hour and every time I go everything is wonderful. Staff are friendly as soon as you step in the door, and they're efficient and fast without feeling like they're rushing you.
For a lunchtime fill up. I recommend one of their sandwiches (which you can add soup or fries to for an extra couple of pounds). The menu has a good choice without being over crowded

Rose Street is a busy, buzzy place full of shoppers during the day and revelers in the evening. It offers pubs and bars, and a wide variety of restaurants. I went there last week to check out the new menu at Element.

Element is a bar and restaurant. Walk through the bar and you’ll find a surprisingly calm restaurant in the back. The decor is cosy and rich, with an almost Victorian feel. The night we were in, the audience was interestingly mixed. In one corner, two Americans on a Scottish tour were having dinner. Next to them, and soon engaged in conversation with the visitors, were two English couples visiting for the week. A young Japanese couple ate quietly in another corner while C. and I had a great view of the room from our seat at the back wall.

Getting Started

Element’s menu is modern international, a mix of global dishes made with local ingredients. There are dishes for most palates. I was tempted by the scallops with celeriac pure and chorizo, and the duck spring rolls, but decided to have home made potato scones served with black pudding and a poached egg. The scone was delicious, two delicate potato triangles, nestling underneath rich black pudding. The poached egg was perfect and the dish was nicely balanced. C. went for the veggie options and started with butternut squash arancini. They had great crunch on the outside and were sunnily orange on the inside.

Salad and More

For mains, I had the crab and chilli linguine. It’s a favourite dish of mine and this was a touch milder that I could have wished but it had chunks of crab and was scattered with red chilli. Crab linguine is one of those dishes that I like on a cold day as well as on a hot one, it’s soothing without being over rich and heavy. There was also roast rump of lamb, burger, steak and Mediterranean vegetable tarte tatin on the menu. I like that they have salads too: the Thai beef salad sounded good. C. had the beetroot and goats cheese salad (and a side of chips). Heritage varieties of beetroot are very popular at the moment and they make for very pretty dishes. A mixture of yellow and candy cane beetroot, sweet and earthy, were lifted by tart, creamy goats cheese.

I finished with the chocolate cranachan roulade. I’d never thought of cranachan as a filling before – it worked. I think cranachan can be a bit much if the balance isn’t just so. The chocolate offered balance to the cream. C. decided against pudding and had an espresso instead.

Element’s menu has something for everyone, at wallet friendly prices. It’s a nice place to get something to eat, and maybe a drink or two, when you’re out and about on Rose Street.

Visited Element today for the first time. We found all of the staff to be very friendly, helpful and calm under pressure to take the orders of our large group. We all found our food to be very delicious, the portion size was very good and fairly priced. My wife will recommend the mushroom soup and the truffle fries. I will recommend the Sunday lunch. Thank you Element for the excellent service today. We would love to visit again.

The steak and ale pie is absolutely world class at element. The all-butter puff pastry comes out of the oven perfectly cooked with a golden crust. The filling stays piping hot long after it arrives at the table. The service was excellent and there was even live music. It’s a great place for a meal or a lively night out.

We went to Element yesterday afternoon to have a couple of cocktails. We were pleased to see such an incredible range of cocktails and in particular, Bloody Marys! The bartender who served us(didn’t catch his name!) was so passionate about his creations and showed a genuine love for what he did. I have never seen seen someone pour so much blood, sweat and tears into making a cocktail and it certainly paid off. The price we paid for the expertise and quality of drink we received is unmatched anywhere. He genuinely made our trip to Edinburgh! The classic Bloody Mary was the best we have ever had and it will be hard to beat. We didn’t eat, but the food we saw looked amazing. We’ll definitely be back! 🥰🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🍅🌶️

We had a great time. The quality of the drinks is really good and the service was very friendly. We were also Very happy with the food but my Highlight was the custom Bloody Mary!

We found the restaurant after a long day visit, ordered two Scottish dishes, steak and ale, another one I forgot the name,but its with chicken, all tastes good and special, really nice

Popped in for a spontaneous late lunch and had some toasties and house beer. Happy to say that everything was delicious, and vegetarian options were also present!

Lovely place to eat Scottish plate… I highly recommend it!

We booked a reservation for the bar thinking that we'd be able to also order dinner there. Silly Americans! No problem for the team here - they let us order drinks at the bar while they prepared a proper table for us (myself, my wife and 10 1/2 year old - he ordered a soda at the bar). We're so grateful that they accommodated us so easily. And, the food was amazing. As was the service provided by everyone that worked there. Highly recommended!