WEEKEND COLUMNISTS Edinburgh seems to incorporate the old and the new more easily than most cities. International brands may occupy Princes Street but the skyline, with the magnificent castle in the background, is still breathtaking, while the plethora of new bars, cafés and shops around St Andrew Square have warmed up the imposing but once rather forbidding George Street.
I travelled by taxi with an old friend from the city centre to Leith, once its main port but now home to numerous cafés and restaurants of its own. My friend, whose gently expanding girth bears testimony to his love of good food and wine, explained the inferiority complex he believes the city’s restaurateurs suffer from. Their best chefs and restaurateurs, he explained, frequently go down to London to eat at the top restaurants but invariably come back feeling that however well they are cooking, it will never be good enough to match what they have enjoyed “in the big smoke”. On the basis of the two meals I ate in Leith, one in a long-established restaurant, the other less than nine months old, I believe this inferiority complex should be jettisoned once and for all.
As soon as our taxi drew up outside The Vintners Rooms, I felt a sense of coming back to an old friend’s house, even though I had not eaten there for a decade. The cobbled street, the atmospheric courtyard, the ancient hoist on the next building that stands above some medieval cellars, all make for a more than enticing entrance to a restaurant whose interior is equally distinctive.
To the left is the 18th-century Sale Room, still only lit by candles, while the main room on the right reveals a bar brimming with bottles and decanters and a fire in the ancient fireplace. In contrast to virtually anywhere in far more expensive London, tables are set out so that there is enough space for your conversation not to be overheard, and all this in a refreshingly smoke-free environment.
The Vintners Rooms is now home to French chef Patrice Ginestière and Italian mâitre d’ Silvio Praino, who returned to this role after running his own Italian restaurant because he had come to enjoy Ginestière’s food so much that he knew he would never have to worry about the kitchen’s performance.
This partnership has apparently flourished and, as a restaurant critic, it is an absolute joy to watch Praino in action. A small, dapper man, he patrols his dining room like a benevolent sergeant major but one trained in an era when learning the most basic skills correctly was essential. The manner in which he silently clears a table of its crockery and cutlery and then relays it with a new tablecloth without an inch of the underfelt being seen by a customer are signs that you are in the hands of an expert. So too is his dexterity with an extremely good wine list and the numerous decanters this can involve.
While these skills, particularly Praino’s rapport with his customers, are timeless, the weakness in Ginestière’s cooking reveals how chefs must evolve. The dishes – grilled red mullet with artichokes barigoules, beef carpaccio with shavings of black truffle, braised ox cheeks and Buccleuch beef – were all good but individually and collectively too heavy with not enough thought given to the vegetable accompaniment. There was no vegetarian first or main course and I could not help but notice that in the reservations book for the following day there was a note that one party contained a vegetarian, who would obviously require special dishes. This approach is outdated and needs to change, even though I hope little else will change at the timeless Vintners Rooms.
Only a short distance away and right down by the waterfront, Tom and Michaela Kitchin set up The Kitchin nine months ago and appear to be garnering the custom their hard work, courage and sensibility deserve.
The Kitchin’s interior is the antithesis of The Vintners Room. There is not a tablecloth to be seen in this ultra-modern interior but again customers can enjoy a comfortable distance between the tables. Kitchin’s culinary slogan, “From Nature to Plate”, is proudly proclaimed on the window that faces on to Commercial Street. It is also reproduced on the menu for extra emphasis, while a large window allows any interested diner to watch at least two or three of the young chefs, dressed in clean white jackets and blue hats, in action.
Kitchin’s menu lay-out clearly reflects this approach. All the carefully sourced main ingredients appear in bold with the list of the secondary ingredients underneath so the eye, and the rumbling stomach, are immediately drawn to what you most want to eat. Kitchin’s training – with Pierre Koffman at La Tante Claire in London and Alain Ducasse in Monaco – seems to inspire his brigade to create dishes that are definitely more than the sum of their parts.
On his website, Kitchin says he hopes to have created a chef’s restaurant (which may explain the three single, male diners when we were there) but the friendliness of the mainly French waiting staff dismisses any notions of exclusivity.
Foie gras with haggis, neeps (turnips) and potatoes did sound distinctive but, as I was close to the water, I chose instead hand-dived Orkney scallops with purple sprouting broccoli and a pumpkin beurre blanc. They were probably the largest scallops I have seen and looked magnificent laid out on a white scallop dish. The fillet of turbot that followed had been cooked with a level of intensity that Kitchin’s two distinguished bosses would have approved of and was accompanied by crisp leeks and painstakingly prepared salsify. From that day’s lunch menu (£15.50 for two courses, £19.50 for three) came an intriguing salad of Highland Burgundy potatoes and Morteau sausage, three generous fillets of John Dory and a first class pear Tarte Tatin with black peppercorn ice cream.
With time and a positive cash flow, the Kitchins will, I am sure, improve their wine list and, I hope, also address the issue of vegetarians. They, at least, offer a mixed salad as a first course but nothing else, although the small cup of carrot and star anise soup that came as an amuse-bouche was delicious.
The bottom of the menu states that vegetarian dishes are available upon request but this is divisive. After all, vegetables are as much a part of Scottish nature as the fish, meat and game that Tom Kitchin and his brigade handle with such aplomb.
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