The Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022 sees a kaleidoscope of restaurant needs jostle during one, very busy, very tiring, very expensive August — for those taking a show up for the duration and flyering up and down the Royal Mile, it’s a hotbed of drama, comedy, and tragedy — and that’s just the food. For visitors, whether for a day, a weekend, or longer, Edinburgh and its famous festival, which officially begins for 2022 on Friday 5 August, can be a whirlwind, and it’s all too easy to be trapped by convenience and decision fatigue at lunch and dinner after deciding what to see from thousands of options, schlepping from the Pleasance, to Underbelly, Bristo Place, Gilded Balloon, Summer Hall, C Nova, Assembly Rooms, and the city’s litany of fringe festival venues.
A guide to eating at the Edinburgh Fringe, then, is necessarily not a list of Edinburgh’s Best Restaurants — dining during a festival is quite simply a different beast to a casual city break. This list of restaurants, coffee shops, and cafes fulfils a few basic needs while guaranteeing quality: there are places for a snaffled lunch during flyering; pre-and-post show dining where a group of people with wildly different tastes will be just fine; and a couple of fancy places, for when things go well or escape is required. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is a wonderful thing, so eat well.
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