Hideout Cafe - Leith

40 Queen Charlotte St EH6 6AX »Map«

Open every day Espresso Coffee: Clifton Coffee Dog-friendly Also: Meals, cakes Free wifi

Coolness: Two walls of lovely arched windows let in loads of light

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The Hideout Cafe (3♥) feels nice as soon as you walk in. The staff are very friendly and the locals are clearly very fond of their cafe.

They do a nice coffee using Bristol’s Clifton Coffee - possibly the only Edinburgh shop regularly using the highly regarded Clifton.

On the corner with Constitution Street, both exterior walls are made up of delicate arched windows that run nearly floor to ceiling. The furnishing is warm and simple using bentwood chairs and round wooden tables.

There's plenty of choice on the menu for breakfast and lunch including pastries, porridge, bacon & eggs, soup, panini, wraps and sandwiches. A selection of cakes is always available and they offer kid-friendly sizes on items including soup, scrambled eggs and a babyccino or hot chocolate, both with marshmallows.

More: thehideoutcafe.co.uk

Twelve Triangles Leith

90 Brunswick St EH7 5HU »Map«

Open every day Espresso Coffee: Steampunk Also: Doughnuts, cake, breads

Coolness: Amazing filled doughnuts

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Twelve Triangles (4♥) is a cosy little bakery cafe just off Leith Walk on residential Brunswick Street. It has a handful of tables and chairs, dark blue panelled walls topped with high, ornate white ceilings and a serene shade of 60's green crockery.

When we visited, the friendly hosts explained that North Berwick-based Steampunk coffee was on offer. We tried a delightful flat white - a full-flavoured Tanzanian that had enough fruity twang to nicely offset the sweet creaminess of the famous Twelve Triangles doughnuts. This will make more sense when you read on.

The owners of this coffee shop are local bakery heroes so you'll have the opportunity to feast on some seriously high quality breads (following the Real Bread Campaign ethos of no artificial additives) pastries of many shapes and flavours, topped focaccias, brownies and more.

Their doughnuts are among their best known items and about as good as you'll find anywhere. We're talking soft, squishy, fresh, sugar-covered pillows of joy, bursting with the likes of maple pecan custard, chocolate peanut butter, poppyseed custard, orange and cardamom, chocolate custard, passionfruit ricotta and apple cinnamon. They may not all be available when you visit, but you get the idea.

This is a hedonist's haven!

More: facebook.com/twelvetriangles

Printworks Coffee

42 Constitution St EH6 6RS »Map«

Open every day Espresso Coffee: Monmouth Coffee Also: Soups, cakes, beans

Coolness: Edinburgh by the seaside meets great coffee

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Printworks Coffee (4♥) is totally committed to high quality ingredients - locally sourced where it makes good sense.

They use Monmouth coffee, an ethically sound and independent outfit from London, with great skill. Their flat whites have rich, robust, caramely flavours without a hint of bitterness. Lovely textured milk, jam-packed with micro bubbles - positively luxuriant.

The space is light-filled with simple low-fuss furnishing, resulting in an open uncluttered feeling. The staff are attentive while remaining equally low-fuss.

Printworks is open seven days and provide incredible looking cakes and other goods from local bakers extraordinaire (Dough Re Mi and Love Pure Cakes), creative and hearty soups (from Union of Genius) and chocolate (from Coco).

If we lived closer, we'd be in here every day. Until then we'll just have to settle for weekends!

More: facebook.com/PrintworksCoffee