Stockbridge in June: The Last Wild Garlic and Sunday Suppers by the Water of Leith

The wild garlic is almost done by mid-June, and you can smell it going. Walk along the Water of Leith through Stockbridge on a warm morning and the air still carries that green, almost belligerent scent — but the white flowers are browning at the edges, the leaves toughening up, and the foragers who were here in April have moved on to elderflower. I came back to Stockbridge this year specifically to catch the tail end of it, and to eat my way through a neighbourhood that keeps getting better at feeding people without getting worse at everything else.

Stockbridge isn't trying to be the next anything. It's a residential pocket ten minutes downhill from the New Town, arranged along a river and a short commercial strip, and it has the particular confidence of a place where people actually live and do their shopping. No one's performing neighbourhood-ness here. They're just buying cheese.

1. The Sunday market, and why you should go hungry

The Stockbridge Market runs every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saunders Street, right where the road dips toward the river. It's not large — maybe thirty stalls — and that's what makes it work. You can actually move, actually talk to the person handing you a crêpe, actually sit on the low wall by the bridge and eat without someone's backpack in your ribs.

I had a buffalo mozzarella and roasted pepper flatbread from Bread Meats Bread's stall for £6 and a wedge of Isle of Mull cheddar from a vendor whose name I didn't write down fast enough and now regret. The Ethiopian injera stall, if it's there the week you visit, is the first place to stop. Not the crêpes. The crêpes are fine. The injera is better.

Skip the fudge stalls. I know they smell good. The fudge is the same fudge you'll find at every market in Britain, packaged in the same wax paper, tasting of the same grainy sweetness. You already know what it tastes like.

2. Where to eat on a weeknight when you don't want to think

Alby's, on Raeburn Place, is the restaurant I wish existed in every city I've ever lived in. It's a small room with a short menu that changes often enough to matter and doesn't change so often that the kitchen is winging it. Last June I had hand-rolled pasta with brown crab and chilli that was so plainly good it made me briefly furious at every restaurant that overcomplicates the same idea. Mains hover around £14-£18. No reservations; just show up before 6:30 p.m. or after 8:30 p.m.

For mornings, The Pantry at 1 North West Circus Place does a weekend brunch that people queue for, and I think the queue is mostly justified — the shakshuka is solid, the sourdough is their own, and the coffee comes from Fortitude, a roaster I trust. Weekday mornings are calmer.

I don't think Scran & Scallie is worth the walk to the end of Comely Bank Road. People send you there because Tom Kitchin's name is on it, and the food is competent gastropub fare, but at £17 for a burger you could get a better meal at Alby's and have money left for wine. The brand is doing more work than the kitchen.

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3. The river walk you'll end up doing twice

The Water of Leith Walkway runs right through Stockbridge, and in June the canopy closes over the path so completely that you forget you're in a city of half a million people. You can pick it up at the bridge on Dean Terrace and walk upstream toward the Dean Village in about fifteen minutes, or downstream toward Canonmills and eventually Leith itself.

Upstream is prettier. The stretch between Stockbridge and Dean Village passes under Thomas Telford's Dean Bridge — enormous, dark stone arches way above your head — and through a gorge where the light goes green and soft. I saw a heron standing in the shallows at 7 a.m. on a Tuesday, completely unbothered.

Downstream toward Inverleith is where you'll find the last of the wild garlic in early June, growing in ragged patches along the bank. By the third week of the month it's mostly gone. If you're the foraging type, take only leaves, not bulbs, and don't be the person who strips a whole patch — the Edinburgh council has actually asked people to stop.

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4. Provisions for the walk home

I.J. Mellis Cheesemongers at 6 Bakers Place is the kind of shop where the smell hits you from the pavement. They've been here since 1993, and they stock Scottish and European cheeses that are actually kept at the right temperature, which sounds like a low bar until you remember how most cheese is sold. Ask for Lanark Blue if they have it. It's Scotland's answer to Roquefort, and it's a good answer.

Herbie of Edinburgh, a few doors along — small wine shop, skews natural without being preachy about it. Bottles start around £10. The staff will actually tell you if something is weird before you buy it, which I appreciate — I once bought a bottle of orange wine elsewhere in Edinburgh that tasted like a wet dog smelled, and nobody warned me.

For bread, walk up to the Stockbridge Tap — not the pub, the bakery counter at the far end of the strip. Or just grab a loaf at the Sunday market if your timing works. Either way, you're walking back up the hill to the New Town with a full bag and the faint smell of garlic on your hands.