The Edinburgh Blog

After work I called off at Centotre on George St Edinburgh for a bite to eat and a drink or two. For those of you without the Italian language skills this equates to 103, which sums up its location on George St ;-)

Centotre is a very popular and highly regarded bar/eaterie on the famous George St strip, and whilst it competes with big guns like ‘Est Est Est’ and the ‘Opal Lounge’ as a style destination, its not uncommon to face a fair wait for a table. On this evening however I was lucky to get straight in; arriving at 6pm did help matters!

I *really* like the layout of Centotre. Its a typical high ceiling, wide open space George Street building. This seems to present many a problem in how to partition the space off and keep some resemblance of a little thing called atmosphere!

However, I think the architects of this place have done a superb job in creating a place with real atmosphere. We sat in one of the booths looking out the windows onto George Street, which was nice. But there are many other table areas off the red illuminated central bar. Service was extremely friendly, efficient and completely without fault.

We opted for the Bread and Olives for a starter. This really impressed me; the superbly fresh and plentiful olives were marinated in a lovely chilli sauce, along with pickled onions, sun-dried tomatoes and capers. The bread and accompanying oils were pretty good too.

I would describe the menu as a high quality, modern and contemporary take on classic Italian cooking. For main I ordered Italian sausages with spinach and other vegetables (£12.95). This was a strong tasting, wholesome main. I must admit when it came I was concerned about the portion size, but this was unfounded as the blend of strong flavour and depth of the dish proved more than adequate. Although, I was grateful to have had the bread with olives starter. The menu has a large choice of drinks, and the food selection more than carries a satisfying three course meal.

Overall I found Centotre to be a superbly designed and staffed restaurant and had prices well within the affordable range for this part of Edinburgh. The dishes I experienced were of high quality and flavour; it’s definately a place I will look to return to and experience more of its food and drink.

Afterwards I went for a couple of cheeky drinks in the excellent Sygn: I’ll be there even more frequently when Edinburgh’s smoking ban comes into force next March! Probably not the most typical measure of a bars quality, but an indication of the attention detail in Sygn: the toilets are, I think, the best I’ve seen in Edinburgh; even having Molton Brown hand wash in the gents!