Tomos Parry has confirmed that Brat will open an Edinburgh restaurant this autumn, marking the first expansion of the wood-fire Shoreditch restaurant outside London since it opened on Redchurch Street in 2018.
The Edinburgh site will be located in the Old Town and is targeted for an October opening. Parry confirmed the news in an interview published this week, describing Edinburgh as the only city outside London where he felt confident Brat's identity could translate without compromise.
"Edinburgh has the right relationship with food," Parry said. "The ingredients — the fish, the game, the produce from the farms just outside the city — are extraordinary. The building we've found gives us the fire kitchen we need. It felt like the only answer."
The Wood-Fire Identity
Brat's cooking is built around a custom-built wood-burning grill and oven that occupy the centre of its kitchen, with a menu that changes daily according to what the kitchen has sourced. The approach — Parry's Welsh heritage expressed through the lens of Basque wood-fire cooking, applied to British and, in the Edinburgh context, Scottish produce — has made Brat one of the most influential restaurants of the past decade.
The Edinburgh kitchen will be built around the same wood-fire principle, with a focus on Scottish seafood, highland game and the agricultural produce of the Edinburgh hinterland. Parry has been explicit that the menu will not be a transplant of the London offer but will reflect the specific availability and character of what Edinburgh's producers can supply.
Brat holds one Michelin star at the Shoreditch original and was named Restaurant of the Year by multiple publications in the years following its opening. A second floor extension at the Shoreditch site, which opened in 2021, has allowed the London restaurant to increase capacity while maintaining the tight, counter-heavy format that defines the dining experience.
The Edinburgh Opportunity
Edinburgh's restaurant scene has been through a period of significant development, with high-profile arrivals from London operators — Dishoom, Hawksmoor and Noble Rot among the names recently confirmed — providing a backdrop of increased confidence in the city's ability to sustain ambitious restaurant concepts.
Parry's decision to open in Edinburgh rather than another London neighbourhood reflects a broader pattern among chef-led independents who see regional expansion as a more viable and creatively interesting option than competing for the next available east London unit.
Reservations for the Edinburgh opening will be released closer to the October target date.