Rooftop Bars in Edinburgh: Castle Views, Prices & Booking (2026)
Edinburgh is a city of very good views and very few rooftops. The skyline everyone photographs — the castle on its crag, the Old Town ridge, Arthur’s Seat behind — is largely made of listed buildings four or five storeys high that nobody is allowed to put a bar on top of. The result is that there are perhaps ten genuine rooftop bars in the entire city, several of them small, one of them open only from April, and one of them not open to the public at all.
That scarcity is the thing every published list of rooftop bars Edinburgh has to offer manages to leave out. It is also the thing that determines your evening: if you turn up at 7pm on a Friday in July at the highest of them without a reservation, you are not getting in. Below is every rooftop bar in Edinburgh worth going to, what you can actually see from each, which are seasonal, which have a roof over part of them for when it rains — and it will rain — and the honest verdict on which are worth the price.
At a Glance
- Highest and best view: W Deck, twelfth floor of the W Edinburgh in the St James Quarter. Uninterrupted 360-degree views. Seasonal — its 2026 season opened on Friday 3 April.
- W Deck is entirely open-air. There is no indoor fallback up there. Check the forecast.
- Best year-round option: Nor’ Loft, seventh floor of the Market Street Hotel, with indoor and outdoor space.
- Best castle view: Cold Town House in the Grassmarket — third floor, planted terrace, castle rock filling the frame.
- Free and least known: the Port of Leith Distillery bar, levels eight and nine, open without a tour, looking out to Fife.
- Harvey Nichols Forth Floor gives you the castle and the Firth of Forth from the same room, and is the best wet-weather choice.
- Lamplighters at the Gleneagles Townhouse is members and residents only. It appears on lists that do not mention this.
- Book everything at weekends between May and September. These are small spaces in a city with a very short outdoor season.
- Cocktails run £13 to £18 at rooftop prices, against £11 to £14 in a good ground-floor bar.
- The honest alternative: Calton Hill is free, five minutes’ walk from Princes Street, and has a better view than any of them.
Every Rooftop Bar in Edinburgh, Compared
| Bar | Building | Floor | What you see | Season | Shelter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| W Deck | W Edinburgh, St James Quarter | 12th | 360°: castle, Calton Hill, Arthur’s Seat, Old and New Town | Seasonal — 2026 season from 3 April | Open-air only |
| Nor’ Loft | Market Street Hotel | 7th | Old Town ridge and the city skyline | Year-round | Indoor and outdoor |
| 1820 | Johnnie Walker Princes Street | 7th | Old Town, with the castle as the focal point | Year-round | Indoor and outdoor |
| Cold Town House | Grassmarket | 3rd | Castle rock, close up, over a planted terrace | Year-round | Indoor and outdoor |
| Harvey Nichols Forth Floor | Harvey Nichols, St Andrew Square | 4th | Castle and the Firth of Forth | Year-round | Indoor and outdoor |
| Chaophraya | Castle Street | 4th | Castle and cityscape | Year-round | Indoor and outdoor |
| Port of Leith Distillery | Leith waterfront | 8th–9th | Firth of Forth to Fife, and back over the city | Year-round | Indoor and outdoor |
| Cafe Calton | Calton Hill | Elevated site | Panorama plus the Forth | Year-round | Indoor and outdoor |
| Doghouse | BrewDog, East Market Street | 2nd | East Market Street — modest | Year-round | Indoor and outdoor |
| SKYbar | DoubleTree by Hilton, Old Town | 5th | Castle, city, the Forth | See note below | Indoor and outdoor |
| Lamplighters | Gleneagles Townhouse | 4th | Georgian New Town | Year-round | Members and residents only |
W Deck: The One With the Actual View
Twelve floors up on the W Edinburgh, the ribbon-wrapped hotel that sits at the top of the St James Quarter and that half of Edinburgh has strong opinions about. Whatever you think of the building from the outside, the terrace on top of it is the only place in the city centre from which you get an uninterrupted 360-degree view — the castle to the west, Calton Hill immediately east, Arthur’s Seat to the south, and the Old and New Towns laid out below in a way that finally makes the geography obvious.
Two things matter enormously and are usually left out. It is seasonal — the 2026 spring and summer season opened on Friday 3 April, and it does not run through winter. And it is entirely open-air: there is no indoor half of W Deck to retreat into if the weather turns, which in Edinburgh is not a hypothetical.
The honest verdict: the best rooftop view in Edinburgh, comfortably, and worth booking. But go on a clear evening or do not go at all — an open terrace twelve floors up in a North Sea wind is a genuinely unpleasant place to try to hold a glass, and the view that justifies the price is the first thing the weather takes away. Reserve, and have a ground-floor plan B in the same building.
Nor’ Loft: The Reliable One
On the seventh floor of the Market Street Hotel, above the street that runs behind Waverley station — which means it looks straight up at the Old Town ridge, with the buildings of the Royal Mile stacked above you and the castle along to the right. It is a smaller and more comfortable space than W Deck, with both indoor and outdoor areas, and it runs year-round.
The name is a good one: the Nor Loch was the artificial lake below the castle that was drained from the 1760s to create what is now Princes Street Gardens, and you are drinking directly above where it was.
The honest verdict: if you can only do one rooftop and you cannot guarantee the weather, this is the one. The view is lower than W Deck’s and better framed — you are looking at the Old Town rather than over it, which is arguably the more photogenic composition. Book at weekends.
Cold Town House: The Castle, Close Up
Third floor of a modern building at the west end of the Grassmarket, with a planted terrace and the castle rock rising directly in front of you. It is the lowest of the serious rooftops and it does not matter, because proximity beats altitude here: from the Grassmarket the castle fills the frame in a way it does not from anywhere higher.
It brews its own beer on site, does pizza, and runs indoor and outdoor space year-round, which makes it the most flexible of the group.
The honest verdict: the best castle photograph of any rooftop in the city, and a good-value one — beer and pizza rather than £16 cocktails. The trade-off is the Grassmarket itself, which is pleasant until about 8pm and then becomes a stag- and hen-party corridor at weekends. Come at six, not at eleven. Our Grassmarket area guide covers the square in full.
1820 at Johnnie Walker Princes Street
Seventh floor of the Johnnie Walker building at the west end of Princes Street, looking south and east over the Old Town with the castle as the focal point. It is part of the whisky visitor attraction below but functions as an ordinary bar — you do not need to book a tour or a tasting to go up, which is not obvious from the building’s marketing.
The drinks list leans, unsurprisingly, on whisky and whisky cocktails, and it is a good place to try things properly if the £45 tasting downstairs is more commitment than you want. Our full comparison of the whisky experiences in Edinburgh covers what is happening on the floors beneath you.
The honest verdict: the view is genuinely good and the position — directly above the west end of Princes Street — is the most convenient of any rooftop in the city. It is also the most corporate-feeling of them, which some people mind and others do not notice.
Harvey Nichols Forth Floor and the Indoor Options
Fourth floor of Harvey Nichols on St Andrew Square — the pun in the name is deliberate, because from here you can see both the castle and, north over the New Town rooftops, the Firth of Forth. It is the only bar in the city that gives you the estuary and the castle from the same seat.
It has indoor and outdoor space, and the indoor half is largely glass, which makes it the best answer on a bad day. In practice this is the wet-weather rooftop: you get the height and the view without the wind.
Chaophraya on Castle Street is the other good indoor-plus-terrace option, on the fourth floor of a Thai restaurant with a straight view of the castle. It is a restaurant with a bar rather than a bar with food, which is worth knowing before you turn up at nine wanting a drink.
Cafe Calton sits on Calton Hill itself, so it is not a rooftop in the strict sense but delivers the same thing — the panorama over the city and out to the Forth, with indoor and outdoor seating, at ordinary cafe prices rather than rooftop ones.
The Two Nobody Mentions
Port of Leith Distillery, levels eight and nine
The best-value high view in Edinburgh, and it is not in most rooftop guides because it is not in the centre. The Port of Leith is the UK’s first vertical distillery — nine storeys of whisky production stacked up a tower on the Leith waterfront — and the top two levels are a double-tiered bar, open to anyone, with no tour required and no admission charge. From it you look north across the Firth of Forth to Fife, and south back over the whole of Edinburgh.
The honest verdict: fifteen minutes on the tram plus a short walk, and you get a higher, wider and quieter view than anything in the centre, for the price of a drink. Combine it with an evening on the Shore and it is the best-value rooftop plan in this guide.
Lamplighters, Gleneagles Townhouse — the one you cannot go to
Fourth floor of the Gleneagles Townhouse on St Andrew Square, looking over the Georgian New Town. It appears on several published lists of Edinburgh rooftop bars. It is open to members and hotel residents only, which those lists tend not to say. If you are staying there, it is lovely. If you are not, do not build an evening around it.
A Note on SKYbar
SKYbar, on the fifth floor of the DoubleTree by Hilton in the Old Town, has a genuinely excellent outlook — castle, city and the Forth from an A-listed building. Its access policy, however, is reported inconsistently: one listing describes it as an events-only space, another gives regular Friday and Saturday evening opening. We could not reconcile the two, so we are flagging it rather than picking one. Phone before you go, particularly if you are travelling across the city for it.
Prices, Booking and the Weather Problem
What it costs
| Item | Rooftop price | Ground-floor equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Cocktail | £13–£18 | £11–£14 in a good independent bar |
| Pint | £6.00–£7.50 | £5.00–£7.00 across the city |
| Glass of wine | £9–£14 | £7–£10 |
| Calton Hill at sunset | Free | — |
Booking
Book everything at weekends from May to September, and book W Deck at any time it is open. Edinburgh’s outdoor drinking season is short and the city responds to a sunny Thursday by filling every terrace within an hour. Most of these venues take both reservations and walk-ins, which in practice means walk-ins get whatever is left. In August, during the Fringe, assume everything is full.
The wet-weather fallbacks
This is the section other rooftop guides do not write, and in Edinburgh it is the most useful one. If the forecast turns:
- Harvey Nichols Forth Floor — largely glazed indoor space with the same castle-and-Forth view. The single best bad-weather option.
- Nor’ Loft — indoor half, seventh floor, Old Town ridge straight ahead.
- Port of Leith Distillery — the top-floor bar is enclosed, and the view over the Forth is arguably better in weather.
- Chaophraya — fourth-floor restaurant with the castle through glass.
- Camera Obscura‘s rooftop terrace — an attraction rather than a bar, but the terrace at the top of the Royal Mile is one of the best views in the Old Town and comes with the ticket.
- Avoid W Deck entirely. It is open-air only and there is nothing to retreat into.
The Honest Verdict: Is a Rooftop Bar Worth It in Edinburgh?
Here is the argument against. Edinburgh is a city with more good free viewpoints than almost anywhere in Europe, because it is built on hills. Calton Hill is a five-minute walk from the east end of Princes Street, costs nothing, is open at all hours, and gives you a better and wider view than any bar on this page — the Old Town ridge, the castle, Arthur’s Seat and the Forth, all at once. Arthur’s Seat is a forty-minute climb and better still. Salisbury Crags at sunset is the best hour in the city and free. Our guide to the best views in Edinburgh lists thirty of them.
What a rooftop bar adds is a seat, a drink, a heater and somewhere to be when it is January and dark at four. That is a real service, and £16 for a cocktail with the castle in front of you is not obviously worse value than £13 for one in a basement. But if the view is the entire point, and the weather is good, and you are choosing between a rooftop reservation and a bottle of something on Calton Hill at sunset — take the hill.
Our pick: Port of Leith for value and the widest outlook; Nor’ Loft for reliability; W Deck on a clear evening if you have booked; Cold Town House if what you want is the castle in a photograph. Everything else is a bar that happens to be upstairs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best rooftop bar in Edinburgh?
W Deck on the twelfth floor of the W Edinburgh has the best view — uninterrupted 360 degrees taking in the castle, Calton Hill, Arthur’s Seat and both the Old and New Towns. It is seasonal and entirely open-air, so on an uncertain day Nor’ Loft on the seventh floor of the Market Street Hotel is the better choice.
Which Edinburgh rooftop bar has the best castle view?
Cold Town House in the Grassmarket. It is only on the third floor, but from directly beneath the castle rock the castle fills the frame in a way it does not from anywhere higher or further away. Harvey Nichols Forth Floor is the alternative if you want the castle and the Firth of Forth together.
Do you need to book Edinburgh rooftop bars?
At weekends from May to September, yes, and for W Deck at any time it is open. Most venues take both reservations and walk-ins, which in practice means walk-ins take whatever is left. During the Fringe in August, assume everything is booked out.
Is W Deck open all year?
No. It operates as a seasonal spring and summer terrace — the 2026 season opened on Friday 3 April. It is also entirely open-air, with no indoor area to move into if the weather turns, so check the forecast before booking.
Is there a free rooftop bar in Edinburgh?
The bar on levels eight and nine of the Port of Leith Distillery is free to enter without booking a tour, and it has the widest view of any of them — north over the Firth of Forth to Fife and south back across the city. You pay only for what you drink.
How much is a drink at an Edinburgh rooftop bar?
Cocktails run £13 to £18, pints £6.00 to £7.50 and wine by the glass £9 to £14 — roughly £2 to £4 more per drink than the equivalent bar at street level, where a cocktail is £11 to £14 and a pint £5.00 to £7.00.
What is the best rooftop bar in Edinburgh when it rains?
Harvey Nichols Forth Floor, which has a largely glazed indoor area with the same castle and Firth of Forth view. Nor’ Loft, Chaophraya and the top-floor bar at the Port of Leith Distillery are the other enclosed options. Avoid W Deck, which is open-air only.
Can anyone go to Lamplighters at Gleneagles Townhouse?
No. Lamplighters is open to members and hotel residents only, despite appearing on several published lists of Edinburgh rooftop bars that do not mention the restriction.
Are Edinburgh’s rooftop bars worth the money?
They are worth it for a seat, a drink and shelter, especially in winter. But Edinburgh is built on hills and its best viewpoints are free: Calton Hill is five minutes from Princes Street and gives you a wider view than any rooftop in the city. If the view is the whole point and the weather is good, take the hill.
Floors, views, seasonal opening and access policies above were checked in September 2026 against published venue listings. W Deck’s 2026 season opening date and the members-only policy at Lamplighters were confirmed; SKYbar’s access policy is reported inconsistently and is flagged in the text. Confirm before travelling.
For free alternatives, see our guide to the best views in Edinburgh. The Edinburgh nightlife guide covers the rest of the evening, the cocktail bars and speakeasies guide covers the ground-floor competition, and romantic things to do in Edinburgh covers what to do with a sunset once you have found one.
