The Milkman

Mark Donald named this Cockburn Street shop after his great grandfather, the last horse drawn milkman in the Aberdeenshire town of Huntly. The tiny space sits inside an 1859 Baronial terrace on Edinburgh's Old Town railway approach, its hand painted fascia still reading Confectioner and Cigarette Merchant from a previous life as a sweet shop, a signwriting detail restored with a 2016 heritage grant.

Espresso here rotates through a single guest roaster at a time, currently pulled from Edinburgh's own Obadiah Collective, while the filter shelf cycles through outside names like La Cabra, Five Elephant, and Girls Who Grind Coffee. Vegan and gluten free pastries sit in the case alongside cinnamon buns, and a handful of window seats make this one of the smallest coffee stops in the Old Town.