Market Street Hotel

One (steeply sloping) block north of the Royal Mile, Market Street Hotel couldn't be more conveniently located for shopping and sightseeing, and at the end of a busy day, it's a cosy, stylish retreat. Through a facade that some might call daringly brutalist in style (this is a new build on a brown-field site that stood vacant for half a century, so they can get away with it without too much Edinburgh pearl-clutching), you enter a street-level concierge lobby (staffed 24 hours) to be whisked by elevator to reception on the seventh floor for a welcoming glass of bubbly. Check-in desk shares a bright, daylit open L-shaped space with Nor' Loft, the hotel's stylish café-lounge-cum champagne bar, where full a la carte breakfast, afternoon tea and small plates are served and a champagne table offers more than 20 prestige labels (no prosecco here!), 11 of them by the glass. Floor-to ceiling windows look out over Princes Street Gardens to the iconic Scott Monument – a view shared by some but not all bedrooms. Bedrooms have a distinctive Scandi-Scottish fusion feel, with polished wood-effect floors, walls brightened by vivid green and sober slate panels and dashes of muted, modern tartans enlivening the soft furnishings. Rooms are notably larger than most standard doubles in Edinburgh. In most, marble bathrooms have been designed as stylish anterooms (so that even standard doubles feel more like suites) and have rainfall showers. Some also have tubs, and all have vegan toiletries by Votary. Fluffy robes and slippers (in an attractive royal blue for a change) come as standard. Waverley Station is a one-minute walk, airport trams and George Street shopping is five minutes away. Strolling up the Royal Mile from Market Street Hotel to Edinburgh Castle takes less than 10 minutes.