The food and drink tours in Edinburgh I'd actually book: multi-stop walking food crawls, a gin distillery tasting, a Leith brewery tour and a vintage double-decker afternoon tea, with exact prices where they're published and an honest flag where they're not.
This is specifically about tours you book with a guide or a host — someone walking you between stops, pouring the tastings, or driving the bus — rather than a list of restaurants to find yourself. If you want to build your own things to do in Edinburgh itinerary from scratch, or you'd rather just pick from the best restaurants and eat where you like, those guides are the better starting point. This one is for handing the planning to someone else for a few hours.
The walking food tours are the core of it: Eat Walk Tours is the biggest and most reviewed, Secret Food Tours is the smaller, pricier alternative, and Edinburgh Food Safari runs genuinely different routes if you want the New Town, the Stockbridge Sunday market or Leith's seafood instead of the Old Town. On the drink side, there's a gin distillery tasting, a Leith brewery tour, and — if whisky is what you're after — I've kept that section short and pointed you to my dedicated whisky distilleries guide, which already covers that ground properly rather than repeating it here.
One honest note before the list: two of these operators, Eat Walk Tours and Edinburgh Food Safari, don't publish their prices anywhere except inside their own booking checkout — I checked directly and couldn't get past it. Rather than guess a number, I've said so plainly below and linked straight to where you can see the real price. Prices run from £25 for the cheapest tasting to £89.99 for the most expensive food walk, and I've named the exact figure wherever it's actually published.
Eat Walk Tours runs the Edinburgh Food & Drink Tour, and it's the one I'd point most people to first, by sheer weight of reviews: 4.9 out of 5 across 3,719 of them, more than any other operator on this list. It's three hours, four pubs and restaurants, and a full meal rather than tasting portions, with a paired drink at each stop, three alcoholic and one alcohol-free for the standard ticket. There's an alcohol-free version if you'd rather skip the drinks entirely, and a whisky upgrade if you want more of it. You meet outside 26 St Giles' Street, a minute off the Royal Mile, with several slots running most days.
The one thing I can't tell you is the price. Eat Walk Tours doesn't publish it anywhere on its own site — it only appears once you start booking through their widget, so there's no figure here worth printing. Call +44 7418 361337 or book online to see the current rate before you commit. That's a genuine gap, not an oversight, and it's the trade-off for what is otherwise the most tested, most reviewed food walk in the city.
Secret Food Tours is the premium alternative: five stops over three to three and a half hours, £89.99 a head, capped at 10 to 12 people, working through Scottish specialties that include haggis, a Lowland single malt whisky, and Scottish desserts and cheeses. It rates even higher than Eat Walk Tours, 4.96 out of 5 across 862 reviews on Google and TripAdvisor combined, and it's the Edinburgh branch of a global chain that's clearly refined the format.
It's also the most expensive food walk on this list, and the exact meeting point isn't given until after you book — the operator just says 'Edinburgh's Old Town.' That's standard for the format, it stops tour-crashers turning up at the first venue, but it does mean booking on a little more trust than with Eat Walk. If budget matters and you don't need the polish of a global brand, book Eat Walk instead; if you want the more curated version and don't mind paying £20-plus more for it, this is the one.
Edinburgh Food Safari is the one to book if you want a genuinely different neighbourhood. It's run by Nell Nelson, a food journalist and TV presenter, rather than a faceless brand, and there are three regular routes: 'Eat Scotland' through the Georgian New Town (about three hours), a Stockbridge farmers'-market safari that only runs on Sundays, and a Leith waterfront safari built around seafood (about two and a half hours), plus a shorter two-hour Fringe-season edition each August. Expect around five stops, starter-sized portions that add up to a proper lunch, and alcohol included with a soft-drink alternative if you'd rather skip it.
Two honest catches. The price isn't published anywhere I could find, like Eat Walk Tours, it's a book-to-see-it situation, so check the live site before you commit. And it's explicitly not wheelchair or pushchair accessible: Edinburgh's hills, cobbles and the venues themselves don't allow it, by the operator's own admission. If that rules you out, Eat Walk Tours and Secret Food Tours are both flatter, central Old Town routes. Dietary needs, including a vegetarian haggis, are accommodated with 48 hours' notice.
ScotBeer Tours at Pilot Beer is the brewery option, run out of Pilot's taproom in Leith. It's £25 a head for a 1.5-hour behind-the-scenes tour of the brewery plus a tasting of at least six beers, and you leave with a local pub guide listing where to drink next, complete with a few special offers. It's the cheapest tour on this whole list, and the only one that gets you inside an actual working brewery.
The catch is availability: it only runs once a week, on Saturdays, so it needs booking further ahead than anything else here if you want a specific date. ScotBeer Tours, not Pilot's own staff, run the session, which is normal for this kind of taproom partnership but worth knowing going in. It's 18-plus to get through the taproom door, and private or custom tours are available if a Saturday doesn't suit your group.
Edinburgh Gin's Classic Tour & Tasting runs from The Arches on East Market Street, a five-minute walk from Waverley Station, not the original Rutland Place site some older write-ups still mention (that one closed when production moved to Leith in 2018; The Arches opened in December 2024). It's £28 per person plus a booking fee for 65 minutes: a welcome gin and tonic, a sample of their Rhubarb & Ginger Liqueur, then a guided tasting of three more gins that rotate seasonally, plus a walkthrough of the working distillery and a Q&A. You leave with a 15%-off voucher and a shop discount. It's rated 4.9 on TripAdvisor across 3,571 reviews and won a 2026 Travellers' Choice award.
It's 18-plus and caps at 12 guests, so book a slot rather than turn up (they run roughly every 40 minutes, midday to 6pm). If you want more than a tasting, the £120 Gin Making Experience is 3.5 hours of hands-on distilling in their Gin Lab, and you take home a bottle you made yourself, though it's a bigger commitment and a smaller group of 8. For most people planning a food-tour day, the 65-minute Classic Tour slots in neatly either side of lunch.
Red Bus Bistro is Edinburgh's afternoon-tea-on-wheels: a 1966 vintage Routemaster double-decker serving a full afternoon tea, scones with cream and jam, sandwiches, mini quiches, petit fours, tea or coffee, while it loops past the Castle, Holyroodhouse and the Old Town. There are two versions, With Fizz (a glass of sparkling wine) or With Gin (a Scottish-gin cocktail, 18-plus), both 90 minutes, departing at noon and 3pm, Tuesday to Sunday, from Stand ZE on Waterloo Place. Third-party listings on afternoontea.co.uk and GetYourGuide both put it at around £43.50 a person, though I'd confirm the live price on Red Bus Bistro's own booking page before paying, since they don't publish one directly.
Set expectations correctly: this isn't a narrated tour with a guide talking you through the sights, it's a moving tea room with sightseeing as the backdrop. There's no onboard toilet (a comfort break is built into the route), the vintage bus has no seat belts, and children under five aren't allowed for licensing reasons. Wheelchair users can board if they can transfer to a seat, and it's worth booking the lower deck in advance if mobility is a concern.
Want the most tested option: book Eat Walk Tours. It has the most reviews of anything here by a wide margin, three hours across four venues, and a real meal rather than tasting plates.
Want to pay for polish: Secret Food Tours is the pricier, more curated five-stop version, run by a global brand that's refined the format.
Want a different neighbourhood, or you're a solo traveller who likes a personal guide: Edinburgh Food Safari's New Town, Stockbridge and Leith routes are genuinely different territory, and it's the only one of the three led by a named host rather than a rotating guide roster. Just check the accessibility note first if mobility is a factor.
Want a single drink experience rather than a food crawl: the gin tasting at Edinburgh Gin's Arches distillery, the brewery tour at Pilot Beer, or a guided whisky tasting (see below) are all one-stop, one to two hours, and easier to slot around other plans than a three-hour walk.
Want something to do rather than somewhere to walk: Red Bus Bistro's afternoon tea keeps you seated for 90 minutes while you see the main sights go past the window, no walking required.
Prices, where they're published: £25 for the Pilot Beer brewery tour or the Scotch Whisky Experience's Silver tour, £28 for Edinburgh Gin's Classic Tour, around £43.50 for the Red Bus Bistro tea (per third-party listings, not the operator's own site), and £89.99 for Secret Food Tours. Eat Walk Tours and Edinburgh Food Safari don't publish a price at all outside their own booking checkout, so I've linked straight to where you can see the real figure rather than guess at one.
Booking ahead: Eat Walk Tours and Secret Food Tours both run small groups that sell out on weekends and during the Fringe. The Pilot Beer brewery tour only runs once a week, on Saturdays, so that needs the most advance planning if you want a specific date. Edinburgh Gin's Classic Tour runs daily on 40-minute slots and caps at 12 guests, so it fills fast too.
Age limits: Edinburgh Gin's tastings and the whisky tours are 18-plus throughout. Red Bus Bistro admits children from 5 (the Gin version is still 18-plus for the cocktail), and Pilot Beer's taproom is 18-plus to enter at all.
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If you want a guided whisky tasting to go with one of the food walks above, the Scotch Whisky Experience below is the easiest add, right by the Castle and open till 8pm. If you'd rather see an actual working distillery instead of a tasting room, Holyrood on the Southside runs a proper hour-long production tour and is a short taxi from the Old Town. For the full lineup, eight venues, working distilleries versus brand experiences, exact prices for all of them, see my dedicated best whisky distilleries and tastings guide — I've kept the entry here short on purpose rather than repeat that work.
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