The Bon Vivant

Thistle Street and the New Town Drinking Scene

Edinburgh's New Town has never quite shaken its reputation as the city's more composed, grown-up quarter. The Georgian grid north of Princes Street operates with wider pavements, quieter foot traffic, and a concentration of independent businesses that tend to attract a more deliberate kind of visitor. Thistle Street, running parallel to George Street, sits inside this pocket. It supports the kind of bar that rewards a deliberate walk rather than a stumble-in.

The Bon Vivant, at 55 Thistle St, is a product of that environment. Bars on streets like Thistle Street do so on repeat custom and word-of-mouth rather than passing footfall. That shapes the tone: the room reads as a place people return to rather than visit once, and the programming, drinks, food, atmosphere, reflects an audience that already knows what it wants. This kind of neighbourhood positioning carries its own logic. Places like Bramble and Panda & Sons have raised the baseline expectation for Edinburgh cocktail work, and The Bon Vivant operates in a city where the comparison set is exacting.

What the Room Signals

Approaching the venue from George Street, the scale narrows quickly. Thistle Street is intimate enough that the exteriors of its bars and restaurants are visible from a distance, and The Bon Vivant presents as the kind of place where the interior does its leading work at low light. The aesthetic sits within the broader Edinburgh tradition of the convivial drinking room: neither the stripped-back minimalism of a modern cocktail bar nor the full-tartan tourist register, but something closer to a well-appointed pub that has taken its drinks seriously. These are rooms that work because they do not try to be elsewhere.

Edinburgh's bar culture has tracked, with some delay, the shift visible in comparable UK cities. In London, the move from theatrical hidden-door formats toward transparent technical programs, leading illustrated by places like 69 Colebrooke Row, arrived earlier and spread faster. In Edinburgh, the equivalent shift has been gentler, with the most credible venues finding a middle path: strong drinks work delivered inside rooms that feel social rather than clinical. The Bon Vivant belongs to this tendency. Across the UK, bars operating at this register, from Merchant Hotel in Belfast to Schofield's in Manchester, demonstrate that considered atmosphere and technical drinks are not in competition. Edinburgh has its own version of this balance, and The Bon Vivant is a working example.

Food, Drink, and the Dual-Format Bar

The dual-format bar, one that functions as a credible food venue alongside its drinks offer, has become one of the more durable models in UK hospitality. It solves a practical problem for guests who want a full evening in a single room, and it creates a commercial logic that supports a better drinks program. The Bon Vivant operates within this format. The food component is not an afterthought or a bar-snacks gesture; it positions the venue in a mid-tier space between dedicated restaurants and pure drinking rooms, which in Edinburgh's New Town is exactly where a certain kind of evening begins and ends.

This format has parallels elsewhere. Aurora and the bar at 24 Royal Terrace Hotel represent different versions of the same instinct in Edinburgh: rooms where the drinks and the space are designed to hold guests for longer than a single round. Beyond Edinburgh, venues like Mojo Leeds, Horseshoe Bar Glasgow, and even Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu each demonstrate that the dual-format model travels across very different hospitality cultures. What works in each case is the same: a drinks program with enough depth to justify a full evening, and food that complements rather than competes with it. L'Atelier Du Vin in Brighton takes a wine-led version of the same approach. The Bon Vivant's position on Thistle Street gives it the neighbourhood context to make this model sustainable.

Planning Your Visit

Thistle Street is a short walk north of Princes Street, reachable on foot from the main train stations in under fifteen minutes. The venue sits in the block between Hanover Street and Frederick Street, within easy reach of the New Town's broader concentration of independent restaurants and bars. For visitors staying in or near the city centre, it functions well as an early evening stop before dinner or as a destination in its own right. The format, with food available alongside drinks, means arrival time is flexible, though the room is likely to be fuller later in the week and during festival periods in August.