Cafe Marlayne

quietly off george street, thistle street has that quality of feeling like it belongs to locals even though it's a two-minute walk from the tourist drag. cafe marlayne fits that rhythm. it's the kind of place where the people who know it tend to keep coming back, not because there's nowhere else to go, but because it's doing something right in a city that now has plenty of options. you don't stumble into a place with this kind of following by accident, exactly, but you do have to know to look for it. the address alone, eh2 1en, puts it in the thick of the new town grid, close enough to everything without being swallowed by it. a good place to be on a grey edinburgh morning with a flat white.