Quotes of the Day

As the rough-hewn setting for Irvine Welsh's 1993 novel Trainspotting, the decayed dockside district of Leith, Edinburgh, provided a wonderfully seedy backdrop for a grim tale of nihilistic, drug-addled youth. But today, just 15 years later, Welsh's characters would struggle to recognize the Scottish capital's old port area. That's because over the past decade Leith — lying two miles (3.2 km) northeast of the city center — has experienced a rapid renaissance thanks to the closure of the docks and the cleaning up of once polluted waterways. The addicts have been replaced by white-collar workers, who live in waterside lofts and entertain themselves at the many galleries and restaurants that have arisen.

Leith's focal point is the Shore: a café-studded quayside leading past a series of tranquil canals fed by the Firth of Forth. Overlooking this estuary is Leith's hippest address, the Malmaison Hotel, www.malmaison-edinburgh.com. It offers 100 individually designed rooms and a brasserie packed with Edinburgh's fashionable crowd.

Of course there's plenty of choice if you want to dine out, and Leith's two Michelin-starred chefs compete hard for visitors' custom. At the ripe old age of 29, Tom Kitchin, www.thekitchin.com, became the youngest Scot to receive the ranking — just six months after he opened his restaurant in a renovated whisky warehouse in 2006. His cooking has a pronounced French influence, partly stemming from his training with Alain Ducasse, and includes inventive dishes such as braised calf-foot-and-shin "fingers," served with sautéed organic snails from Devon and a garlic and parsley risotto. Across the quayside, top toque Martin Wishart has opened a designer cookery school, www.cookschool.co.uk, and a namesake restaurant on the waterfront, www.martin-wishart.co.uk, which he runs with his wife Cecile. Wishart's eclectic approach engenders dishes like haggis bonbons, chilled sweetcorn soup with basil sorbet, and pressé of foie gras and smoked pheasant with rhubarb curd.

All the new restaurants and shops have made Leith "a lot busier" in recent years, says Bea Taylor, proprietor of quirky boutique Flux, www.get2flux.co.uk. Green shoppers will like her selection of Fair Trade jewelry, goods fashioned from recycled materials and handmade British crafts. Over at Georgian Antiques, www.georgianantiques.net, visitors can browse a 50,000-sq.-ft. (460 sq m) space — one of the largest antiques stores in Scotland — and pick up everything from a 19th century mahogany chiffonier to an early 20th century hall lantern with beveled glass. More modern but equally pricey artifacts are on display at Leith Gallery, www.the-leith-gallery.co.uk, where director Jan Morrison showcases the work of both young and established Scottish contemporary artists.

Away from the Shore, Leith is perhaps best known for the Sir Terence Conran-designed Ocean Terminal, www.oceanterminal.com. This sprawling three-story shopping mall features all the usual big-box stores but also a handful of cafés, bars and restaurants with floor-to-ceiling views onto the decommissioned Royal Yacht Britannia, www.royalyachtbritannia.co.uk. Moored outside, the spotless vessel, with its gleaming engine room (but surprisingly modest royal apartments) is now a museum, harking back to an earlier age of travel and empire. But Leith doesn't worry too much about the past these days. It's pulling away from its gritty history and going full steam ahead.

• Farhad Heydari