The Oxford Bar, Edinburgh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

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Location: 8 Young St, Edinburgh EH2 4JB

Year of Inscription: 2024

Venue Type: Historic Tavern / Basic 

EBG Rating:8.5/10
Choice/
Quality of Drinks		❤️❤️❤️❤️
Cask ales and whisky focus with a perfunctory back bar. Ales from largely independent Scottish brewers.
Style/
Décor		❤️❤️❤️❤️
A whitewashed frontage with heritage signage, the iconic Oxford Bar awning greets you above the entrance. Move to a slim bar room on your left with a high bar that seems to raise line a stage above you, an effect accentuated by the steps ahead of you to the lounge. The furnishing is deliberately simple and wooden with cream walls, decorated seasonally with local artwork and photography. The lounge features a flickering fireplace most of the year.
Atmosphere/
Character		❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Nothing less than a city institution, the connections to the police force and literary inclusions have cemented its reputation over the years, but the character comes from its simplicity and its age, little altered because there is so little to alter. Naturally the pub features tourists, particularly on weekends, but this is not a theme pub or a tat pub.
Amenities/
Events		❤️❤️❤️
Snacks, local artwork, newspapers, fireplace
Value For Money❤️❤️❤️
Reasonable considering the location.
Description‘The Ox’, possibly Edinburgh’s most famous pub, endures and retains its relevance as a day-to-day pub, rather than a tourist destination. The beauty is in its simplicity, a two roomed shop with a bar that seems to loom above you, and a firelit lounge with simple seating.

A good selection of cask ales and whiskies is of course a nice compliment to the setting.

The local constabulary used to frequent the bar, leading it to be namedropped in several novels, most prominently Rankin’s ‘Rebus’ series.

On weekends the crowd turns more international, as you’d expect, but this still majestically performs the function of simple, honest local, the kind anyone would wish to be at the end of their street.