A sleek, colourful wine bar has been created within a boutique Edinburgh hotel
Located in a Georgian square close to Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park, Ten Hill Place Hotel opened just over six years ago but it has only now added a separate stand-alone bar. Former office space next to the foyer has been transformed into the contemporary 10 Wine Bar, complementing the existing No Ten à la carte restaurant. “We wanted to improve the customer experience and provide two areas for the guests,” explains marketing manager Moira Walker.
The hotel itself is made up of a Georgian building plus a modern extension and is owned by The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh which dates back over 500 years. Profits from the hotel and its bar are invested back into the organisation’s activities including support for research to advance standards of patient care for the future.
The organisation’s commercial director Scott Mitchell developed the new bar with Edinburgh-based studio Cr8architecture, which has worked on a variety of projects such as Edinburgh bar and restaurant Eighty Queen Street. Reworking all the hotel’s public spaces including the foyer and restaurant, Cre8architecture partner Ian Hogg says that one of the main objectives was to create a bar that would help raise awareness of the hotel. “The quality of finish, materiality, colour and lighting needed to respond to the day and night activity of the bar, stretching from overspill at breakfast through to an evening wine bar,” he adds. It features a palette of vibrant colours and stripes, contrasting with plain white-topped tables and a solid white Corian bar counter as well as wooden box-shaped shelves for bottles. The contemporary light fittings include Kartell’s Fly pendants, shaped like floating soap bubbles, designed by Ferruccio Laviani.
For the wine list, The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh turned to a supplier with plenty of heritage of its own, Corney & Barrow, which dates back 230 years. It allows the bar to provide a unique range of wines with benchmark examples of different wine varieties and wine regions around the world. The wines, including sparkling, are offered by the glass as well as the bottle.
For special occasions, the bar also offers The Surgeons’ Cellar List of exclusive wines for connoisseurs and runs regular wine tastings. There is also a good selection of local beers, spirits and liqueurs.
The bar food is made up of light meals, small dishes, sharing platters and desserts, targeting the after-work crowd as well as people on their way to the nearby Festival Theatre in Nicolson Street. The tapas-style part of the menu ranges from Shetland mussels, crispy bacon in dill and white wine sauce served with bread, to crispy hoisin-marinated pork belly with coconut rice noodles and beetroot and ginger mousse.
After opening the bar’s doors to the public in January, Scott says: “10 Wine Bar is bright and spacious and we are looking forward to welcoming patrons for a relaxing glass of wine and delicious food.”
10 Wine Bar, 10 Hill Place, Edinburgh EH8 9DS
Tel: 0131 662 2080
www.tenhillplace.com
Who did it
Architect: Cre8architecture
Contractor, wine box shelves, joinery: SJS Property Services
Bar fittings: ServaClean
Carpet: Ege
Bar ceramic tiles: Domus
Wallcoverings: Tektura
Bar counter: DuPont Corian
Fly pendant: Kartell
Foyer ceramic tiles: Ora Ceramics
M&E Engineer: Wallace Whittle
