Artisan Roast

This Broughton Street room opened in the summer of 2007 as the first specialty coffee shop and roastery in Scotland, a snug, unpolished space that's since trained generations of Edinburgh baristas before they went on to open places of their own. The shop picked up the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award in 2012, recognition that's stayed attached to the brand well after the win.

Beans come sourced globally from South America, Central America, and Africa, roasted for a lineup that runs from lighter profiles through the occasional cask finished coffee rested for a month in a used whisky barrel. Artisan Roast has since grown to four Edinburgh addresses, Broughton Street, Leith Walk, Bruntsfield, and Stockbridge, but this original shop still carries the weight of being first.