Bakery and all-day café, Old Town, since 2022

Ferro

Bread out of a cast-iron oven from six, coffee from eight, and a small supper on Thursdays to Saturdays.

Open every day from 8:00

The counter at Ferro in the morning, with the deck oven behind.

The story

How Ferro came to be

Ferro opened in 2022 in a bakehouse that had been empty for thirty years. The oven is the reason for the name: a cast-iron deck oven, fired every morning at four, which gives the bread a thick, dark crust that a modern electric deck does not quite match. Ferro is the Italian word for iron.

Anneliese Brodie, our head baker, keeps a rye and a wheat starter that both started life in 2019 and have been fed every day since. The loaves are long-fermented, so a sourdough that goes into the oven at six has been working for nearly a day. Everything on the counter is baked in the building, and anything unsold at four goes to a local food bank.

By day Ferro is a café: breakfast until half past eleven, then soup, pies and sandwiches built on the same bread. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings the room changes. The lights go down, the long table is laid and a small supper menu begins at half past six.

The bakehouse at the back, with the oven and the long worktable, can be booked for private dinners and bread classes.

Open since
2022
Cooking
Bakery and café
Price
£
Hands steadying a dark, floured sourdough loaf on a linen cloth.

The room

Where you will sit

The people

Who looks after you

Anneliese Brodie

Head baker

Anneliese fires the oven at four every morning and has done since the day Ferro opened. She runs the bread classes and still scores every loaf for the first batch herself.

Joel Okafor

Café and supper manager

Joel runs the counter by day and the long table by night. He roasts the house coffee with a small roaster in Leith and chooses the short supper wine list.

Visit

Hours and address

Ferro
3 Ironmonger's Close
off the High Street, Old Town
Edinburgh EH1 1TX
+1 555 010 1423
ferro@dine.phoenixcodes.org
Opening hours atFerro
Monday to Saturday Bakery and café 08:00 to 17:00
Thursday to Saturday Supper 18:30 to 22:00
Sunday 09:00 to 16:00

Getting in

  • The close has a gentle slope and a level, step-free entrance to the café. The bakehouse at the back is on the same level.
  • An accessible toilet in the café.
  • Menus in large print on request, and a printable menu on this website.
  • Assistance dogs are welcome.
Four minutes on foot from Waverley station, up the close from the High Street.

Reservations

Book Ferro

Mornings, Monday and Tuesday are walk-in only. We take bookings for lunch from Wednesday, supper from Thursday to Saturday, and Sunday brunch.

Tables at Ferro