6a Nicholson Street

A first-floor restaurant, accessed by a narrow door-way opposite the Festival Theatre on Nicholson Street in South Central Edinburgh, this was the famed location where J.K. Rowling wrote substantial portions of her first book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Escaping her cold flat, Rowling took up residence in a corner seat and wrote for hours on end, with her baby daughter asleep beside her. Then Nicholson's cafe bistro, the premises was occupied by a Chinese Restaurant until 2009 and thereafter returned to serving as a cafe.

The buildings themselves, much-altered internally, date from c.1790 and represent the western side of a block of tenements erected around a square, with Surgeons' Hall on the southern aspect. The land was offered for development by Dr Alexander Monro (Secundus; 1733 - 1817). The windows to the front of the restaurant are in the art nouveau style.

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