SUMMER IN THE CITY

Though the biggest and noisiest of the festivals, the Fringe is one of many running concurrently, each with its own strong identity. Its more buttoned-up but highbrow older sibling, the Edinburgh International Festival (August 10-September 2, www.eif.co.uk), brings internationally celebrated dance and theatre companies, orchestras and classical musicians to town.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival has starry premieres and exuberantly edgy scheduling of indie pics that will never make it to the multiplex (August 15-26, www.edfilmfest.org.uk). Housed in tents and tepees in Charlotte Square, the Edinburgh International Book Festival (August 11-27, www.edbookfest.co.uk), after the hurly-burly of the Fringe, is a soothing, cerebral urban retreat offering more than 600 authors from 40 countries.

In recent years, the local galleries have upped their game by programming their best shows for the summer (www. edinburghartfestival.org). And even if military pageantry is not your scene, you should enjoy the fireworks display put on nightly at the close of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo at the castle (August 3-25, www.edintattoo.co.uk).

Further details of all these, along with events such as the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, from July 27 to August 5, and the Mela, September 1-2, are available at www.edinburgh festivals.co.uk.

THE COMEDY GUIDE TO EDINBURGH: PHILL JUPITUS

The odd hours, laissez-faire lifestyle and alcohol consumption of the Fringe would put anybody in a right state, so it’s useless to fight it. For me, the city is a labyrinth of delights, and there is nothing better than just mooching around trying to find something new. In my experience you always do.

During my last visit I wandered into a milliner’s in the Grassmarket, called Fabhatrix, and bought myself a rather swish pork-pie hat. But the familiar is what I love, and no trip to Auld Reekie is complete without a stop on Lothian Road to enjoy some quality Italian food at either Lazio or Dario’s. There’s little to separate them in terms of quality and atmosphere, so I tend to visit them on an alternating basis. Next time it’s Dario’s turn. There’s something loosely decadent about shooting the breeze with a beer in your hand and a fantastic meal in front of you at three in the morning...

Details: Fabhatrix, 13 Cowgatehead (0131 225 9222, www.fabhatrix.com); Dario’s, 85-87 Lothian Road (0131 229 9625); Lazio, 95 Lothian Road (0131 229 7788, www.lazio-restaurant.co.uk).

Phill Jupitus performs Waiting for Alice at the Assembly Rooms; he co-wrote the play with his co-star Andre Vincent

RUSSELL KANE

There is nothing worse than hearing that tired old cliché “the hidden backstreet gem of an eatery”. So here is one. The Mitre – unashamedly located amid the American tourists and drama-degree-hawkers. It is so central, so inordinately high-streety, that nobody could suspect the succulence of its steaming haggises, festooned with onions and run through with the wafer-thin poème gastronomique of a quadrilateral oatcake.

I can barely write, thinking of the Mitre’s pies, heartier than a weightlifting nan; steaming vegetables as though delivered by a vegan Mammon. The food is good, the wenches fine, the atmosphere jolly. Occasionally, live music too – anything from budget Proclaimers to an embarrassing Dad-figure crooning Jamiroquai songs from the 1990s. It’s open well late, so you can get pissed up and that. Details: The Mitre, 131-133 High Street.

Russell Kane will be performing at Pleasance Beside

PAM ANN

I love nothing more than worshipping at the temple of Harvey Nicks, on St Andrew Square. I think it best to start at the top, at the rooftop restaurant for a casual lunch. On a good day you can sit out on the balcony and see across the Firth of Forth to Fife. I’ve been told it’s best to look rather than visit.

The top floor is also home to the cocktail bar, so always worth dropping in there before visiting the deli and buying some very expensive food that you’ll never get around to eating. And then there are some fantastic clothes. I find the menswear department is a good place for my leafleting personnel to hand out information on the show.

Details: Harvey Nichols and its Forth (sic) Floor restaurant are at 30-34 St Andrew Square (0131 524 8388, www.harveynichols.com).

Pam Ann’s One World Alliance will be in the Ballroom, Assembly Rooms

SHAPPI KHORSANDI

Arthur’s Seat is where I head for a bit of sanity and clarity. It’s the only place in the city where nobody is likely to thrust a flyer for an obscure Peruvian ballet-on-unicycles collective in your face and where we performers are unlikely to see a muddy, wet flyer of our own show, thrust to the ground by a festival-goer who’d rather eat their own face than come and see us.

Apparently, this ancient rock is an inactive volcano. I don’t know whose idea it was to put it in the middle of such a big city, but I’m very glad they did. We never had volcanoes when I was growing up, so this one is a real treat. It’s a stone’s throw from the hub of the festival, but it takes you a million miles away.

After all that walking, I go to the Indian Place, in Drummond Street. It’s the best Indian in Auld Reekie.

Details: The Indian Place, 10 Drummond Street.

Shappi Khorsandi will be performing Carry on Shappi at the Pleasance Jack Dome

RICHARD HERRING

I first visited Tempting Tattie as an impoverished student in 1987. You could get an enormous, deep-filled jacket potato very cheaply, and I liked to save my money to waste in amusement arcades, so I probably ate there most days. Early on I settled on a favourite – a “medium” potato (a huge amount of food – you must never go for a large) with that Scottish orange cheddar cheese and a huge dollop of mango chutney. I would always leave with my stomach bulging, feeling slightly but pleasantly sick.

In the intervening two decades, it has become a tradition for me to go there at least once every Fringe. It is good to have a constant, anchoring you to your past.

Details: Tempting Tattie, 18 Jeffrey Street (0131 556 7960).

Richard Herring will be performing at Underbelly’s White Belly

STEWART LEE

Avalanche Records used to be the perfect antidote to HMV and Virgin. The music the big stores stock is decided by squares in head office, but Avalanche was a good example of frontline staff setting the tone.

In the 1980s, the Avalanche branch up West Nicolson Street, opposite the Pear Tree pub, by the mosque, was the first shop in Britain to push the New Zealand indie rock sounds of the Flying Nun label, and it quietly changed our listening tastes.

In the 1990s, the now-closed branch in the New Town was run by a guy who loved Americana and alternative country. It became a mecca for music listeners nationwide. Today, the availability of specialist sounds on the internet means that the need for pioneering, taste-shaping record shops is not as great, but Edinburgh still has the country’s best record shop in Avalanche – it’s a great place to browse.

Details: Avalanche Records, 17 West Nicolson Street.

Stewart Lee will be performing his new show, 41st Best Stand-up Ever, at the Udderbelly

DANIELLE WARD

When I was a child, fish came in three forms: battered, fingered or won at a fair. These days, I’m able to appreciate my seafood a bit more, which is why my favourite place in Edinburgh is Fishers in the City. Fishers would be a shoo-in for the Perrier Award if it still existed and had a best fish restaurant category (which it didn’t). It offers up divine fresh catches, but it’s not afraid to experiment with dishes either: I once had sea bass on beetroot. Actually, it may not have been sea bass, but it was definitely a fish/ beetroot combo and it was amazing. Last time, I had scallops served in their shells. Not only was it beautiful but I took one of the shells home as a souvenir. Superb food, and a free gift.

Details: Fishers in the City, 58 Thistle Street.

Danielle Ward is at the Underbelly’s Baby Belly 2

LUCY PORTER

I got into vintage clothing when we still called it “secondhand”. The first year I came to the festival was 1992. I was staying near Clerk Street and chanced upon Armstrongs, Edinburgh’s mecca for fans of used clobber. I swept up armfuls of stuff, including a black beaded cardigan that is still going strong, and I’m still wearing the pink geometric-patterned cashmere sweater that I bought four years ago, even though there’s a gaping hole under the armpit.

Over the years, I’ve picked up loads of things I love – both from Clerk Street and the Grassmarket branch. So if you see me at the festival in a Pucci-esque 1960s maxidress, pink cowboy boots and a trilby, blame Armstrongs.

Details: Armstrongs, 83 Grassmarket.

Lucy Porter will be performing her new show, Lucy Porter’s Love-In, in the Pleasance Courtyard

SIMON BRODKIN

There’s nothing worse than sitting through an hour of dispiriting experimental satirical dance – except sitting starving through an hour of dispiriting experimental satirical dance. The solution? Palmyra Pizza, in Nicolson Street, the ideal watering station on the festival marathon. This place is cheap but tasty, awash with Syrian hospitality, open till 3am and perfectly positioned between the Gilded Balloon, Pleasance Courtyard, Pleasance Dome and Udderbelly.

Despite the name, it’s about more than pizza, which is just its hook for the unimaginative. There are wraps, dips, hummus, salad, kebabs, toasties and various exotic Syrian dishes, and it caters for all tastes – I’m vegetarian, though I eat some fish, which technically makes me a liar. Take away or, if you’re feeling fancy, go formal by sitting at a plastic table. An extra tip: claim a student discount. I’ve been getting away with it despite leaving full-time education in 2000.

Details: Palmyra Pizza, 22 Nicolson Street (0131 667 6655, www.mmntrading.co.uk/palmyra).

Simon Brodkin will be performing at Pleasance Beside

ALEX HORNE

The best show at the festival is off the Royal Mile. Take a train from Waverley station to North Berwick then check the Celtic Cross on the harbour for sailing times to Bass Rock. The venue is both cramped and damp – the Sula II seats 69 uncomfortably and doesn’t have a roof – but at £8.50 for the entire trip, you won’t get more for your honk all August.

Bass Rock is a perfect, pure-white island, symmetrical and silent – at least until you sail closer and realise that the whiteness is actually an illusion created by its cast of 9,000 gannets who are now shattering that silence by screaming about your head, supported by countless kittiwakes, fulmars and shags, before the brilliantly clown-like puffins waltz on and steal the show. Book early, these miniature jesters will only be here for another couple of weeks before transferring east to a secret destination.

Details: Bass Rock, North Sea, off North Berwick.

Alex Horne will be performing at Pleasance Above Tickets for these comics’ shows, and all other Fringe productions, can be bought from the festival’s website at www.edfringe.com or by telephone on 0131 226 0000. The Edinburgh Fringe runs from August 5 to 27 Plan your Scottish break

WHERE TO STAY

Book as soon as possible. It is not just tourists who flood to the city in August; all the performers and production staff have to be accommodated too.

High end: the classic city-centre hotel is the Balmoral Hotel (0131 556 2414, www.thebalmoralhotel. com), only a few minutes’ walk from Waverley station and many key festival venues. Recently refurbished, it has stylish rooms, fine restaurants, classy bars and an award-winning spa. Room prices range from £345 to £510, based on two sharing, though some nights are already beginning to sell out.

Medium: Edinburgh has seen a real development in boutique hotels in the past decade. Among the best are those owned by the Town House

Company: Channings, the Bonham, the Howard and the Edinburgh Residence. All are in the city centre, New Town or West End, within walking distance or a short taxi ride from the main festival venues and transport hubs. All have good restaurants. From £145 to £395 per room, based on two sharing (0131 274 7400, www.townhousecompany.com).

Cheaper: the Apex City Hotel is within stumbling distance of the action. It’s clean, well designed and offers B&B from £129 to £240 per room, based on two sharing (0845 365 0000, www.apexhotels.co.uk).

Cheap: there are also many B&Bs. The local tourist board’s website has a database covering everything from self-catering and camping to campus accommodation (0845 22 55 121, www.edinburgh.org/accom).

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