The Underground sits four floors down inside the Royal Scots Club at 29-31 Abercromby Place, and the honest way to grade a basement bar is from the worst seat in it. Take a high stool against the back wall, no window, on a night when half the booths are booked for someone else's party. From there it still holds up. The room is warm, the bar is properly stocked, and the cocktail list is real.
This is not a street-corner pub you stumble into. The Royal Scots Club is a New Town members' club and small hotel, founded in 1919 as a living memorial to the regiment's war dead, per its Wikipedia entry. The Underground is its bar on the B4 level, and the club runs it for events and private hire more than for walk-in trade.
The room reads as rustic rather than grand. There are cushioned booths, high stool tables, and bench seating, with a lift down so the basement stays reachable for everyone, per the venue's Tagvenue listing. It holds about 30 seated or 40 standing, which is the right size for a birthday or a work night out and far too small to feel anonymous.
The bar itself is full service. Expect draught beer and lager, bottled beers, wines, spirits, soft drinks, and a complete cocktail list, the same listing notes. Order a classic and judge the room on that. A negroni or an old fashioned tells you more about a kitchen-adjacent club bar than any signature serve does, and this one is built to handle both.
What the space actually does well is the hosted night. The club books the Underground for birthday parties, team away days, and work nights out with live music, plus the occasional pub quiz, according to the same venue notes. Lighting is low, the booths take small groups, and the sound holds a band without swallowing conversation at the bar.
Here is the catch, and it matters. You usually need a reason to be down there. Because the Underground leans on private hire and club events, the easiest routes in are staying at the Royal Scots Club's hotel, attending one of its open events, or booking the room for your own group through the club's official page. Turn up cold on a quiet Tuesday and you may find it dark.
The crowd follows whoever booked it. On a club function it skews older and regimental, on a private birthday it is whatever that host invited, and on a live-music night it fills with a New Town mix who treat the basement as a find. That swing is the whole character of the place. The Underground is only as good as the night it is hosting, and on a good one it is genuinely warm.
It suits three people in particular. The group of eight to twenty who want a private bar with a door they can shut. The club guest who would rather drink downstairs than walk out into the cold. And the local who likes a New Town room most tourists never reach. If you came looking for a bar to crawl between on a Friday, this is the wrong shape, and our guide to the best cocktail bars in Edinburgh points you at the walk-in rooms instead.
For the wider map, the Edinburgh cocktail bars page and the full Edinburgh city guide carry the bars you can wander into any night. Treat the Underground as the booking you make when you want a basement to yourselves, a short walk from the rest of the New Town.
Best time to go is a hosted live-music night, or your own private booking with the booths reserved and a bartender working only your room. Get a classic cocktail in hand, take the worst seat by the back wall, and see how the night fills in around you.
Sources: Royal Scots Club (official) · Tagvenue · Wikipedia · Google Maps reviews
