Broughton Street butcher founded in 1955 by Alex Crombie, a former bacon curer and meat inspector, and expanded from the 1970s by son Sandy. Its 'Sausages of Distinction' won Scotland's Best Butcher's Beef Sausage in 1985 and grew into a range of more than 100 handcrafted varieties.
Best for Award-winning handcrafted sausages, more than 100 varieties since 1955.
Alex Crombie was 49 when he took over a small, run-down butcher's shop at 49 Broughton Street in Edinburgh in 1955. He came to it with experience as a butcher, bacon curer and meat inspector for Edinburgh City Council, and built the business around four stated principles: quality, value, cleanliness and service. His handcrafted sausages, marketed as 'Sausages of Distinction,' became the shop's signature early on.
Alex died in 1961 at 55. His son Sandy, who had joined the business in 1956, took over and expanded the shop through the 1970s by incorporating neighbouring units on Broughton Street. In 1985 the business won Scotland's Best Butcher's Beef Sausage with a low-fat recipe, a result that pushed the team to develop what is now a range of more than 100 handcrafted gourmet sausages.
The shop, at 97-101 Broughton Street within the Broughton Market, is today run by Sandy's son and daughter-in-law as a broader food store alongside the original sausage and meat trade. A pause in nationwide courier shipping currently limits customers to shop collection or delivery within Edinburgh's EH postcodes.
Swedish baker Peter Ljungqvist opened Edinburgh's first Peter's Yard café in the Quartermile in 2007, adding a Stockbridge branch in 2012. Its crispbreads and crackers are made from a 45-year-old sourdough starter fermented for 16 hours, certified by the Real Bread Campaign.
Best for Swedish sourdough crispbreads from a 45-year-old starter
Peter's Yard began with a chance meeting. Two English friends, Ian and Wendy, had left corporate careers to pursue their own idea of bringing Swedish-style baking to the UK, and on a research trip to Sweden they were pointed toward a baker named Peter Ljungqvist. Sharing an evening at his home near Ystad, they tasted his knäckebröd, a Swedish crispbread, and told him it was too good to stay confined to one small bakery.
Ljungqvist opened the first Peter's Yard in Edinburgh's Southside Quartermile development in 2007, a space of glass and pale wood softened by the smell of fresh bread. Its reputation grew steadily enough that a second location followed in Stockbridge in 2012, adding sourdough pizzas, open-topped sandwiches, cardamom buns, and hot chocolate served at communal tables.
The bakery's crispbreads and crackers are built on a 45-year-old sourdough starter, fermented for 16 hours without shortcuts or artificial ingredients, and are certified by the Real Bread Campaign. The products have picked up coverage in Olive Magazine, The Telegraph, and Delicious, among others, carrying Ljungqvist's Swedish training well beyond the two Edinburgh shops where it started.