My husband and I had never been to Scotland when we were invited to a wedding in the Highlands a few years back. My husband’s friend was marrying a lovely Scottish woman who had grown up on a working farm. The wedding was actually on the farm, and rowdy—with copious drinking, ceilidh (pronounced “kay-lee”) dancing, and general merriment. Even in mid-June, the sky was still somewhat alight as the party drew close to midnight. We felt like the only ones for miles out on the farm, dancing down the sun.
The wedding seemed like a good excuse to see more of a country we’d heard wonderful things about. This trip also came at a time when my husband and I were starting to think about having a baby, having been married a few years prior ourselves. We figured we’d make the most of what might be one of our last few trips as a couple. So after the wedding in the Highlands, we rented a car and drove across the country to the Isle of Skye, and down through otherworldly Glencoe. We talked and gawked at the incredible scenery, sometimes pulling over just to get out and look around. We listened to Scottish folk songs. Somewhere along the drive, we picked up a stuffed, fuzzy Highland Cow—a wish for our future baby. We dropped the car in Glasgow, Scotland’s most populous city, and caught the short train ride from Glasgow to Edinburgh where we planned to spend a few days before flying home and start, in earnest, trying to make three from two.
One climbs up from Edinburgh’s main train station and right into its beating heart. I have rarely been more immediately knocked over by a place. Brown-gray stone coats the medieval city, old buildings seeming to stretch for miles across hills. Our hotel was very near the train station in the “new” part of Edinburgh (“new” meaning still older than the founding of my country). After we dropped our bags we thought it prudent to find some beers and maybe something to eat, in that order. That’s when we came across Kay’s.
Kay’s Bar is tucked away on a quiet side street, a local bar for an Edinburgh neighborhood somewhat removed from the tourist center. It has two small rooms, one in front and one in back, with the front room containing a small bar with no more than 10 stools. I took a seat at a table right under the front window while my husband went to get us two beers.
There were no more than five guys at Kay’s when we arrived, though a few more trickled in and out. I watched a middle-aged man come in with an older man trailing behind him, supported by a cane. The middle-aged man took a seat alone, while the older man (seemingly his father) got a beer at the bar and proceeded to chat with his friends the rest of the afternoon. The son waited patiently, having made sure his dad could get to the pub to see his buddies. I wondered if they did this every day.
My husband came back with two pint glasses of differing amber shades, and a small bun hand-wrapped in plastic. He had asked if they were serving food, and the man behind the bar responded impassively that he “maybe had a filled roll”, and then procured it from a plate by the window. We unwrapped the plastic and each took bites of the buttery roll, stuffed with corn beef. Maybe we were hungry from the train ride, or just happy to be at a Scottish pub, drinking and together. But the filled roll felt immediately Proustian: a simple food memory elevated to mythic status by the uniquely pleasurable context in which it was consumed. A pre-wrapped corn beef roll never tasted so good.
Though we had just arrived in a new city, we wiled away the whole afternoon at Kay’s: talking, drinking Scottish beers, reading the newspaper, and watching local friends and acquaintances hang out. It was never loud, and the median age never seemed to drop below 60. Half the time, my husband and I were talking about how this was our new favorite bar in the entire world.
Last summer we went back to Kay’s, now with our one-year-old son in tow. We were eager to return to the place we’d spent this dreamy afternoon at the end of that memorable vacation—right before we’d started trying for him.
Kay’s was quick to tell us that babies aren’t actually allowed in pubs in Scotland. Though this changed our plans, it couldn’t deter them entirely: my husband and I took turns walking our napping son around the side street in his stroller, while the other went in and enjoyed a pint alone.
It wasn’t the same as being in there together, carefree, eating a filled roll. But life contains many chapters. If we’re lucky, one day our son will be escorting his doddering parents to Kay’s, getting a pint alone in the back, and waiting while we chat at the bar with our friends.
La Bonne Adresse
Kay’s Bar
39 Jamaica St, Edinburgh EH3 6HF, United Kingdom
Phone: +44 131 225 1858