Is the tasting menu over? The rise of 'accessible' dining out in Scotland

The type of menu once usually reserved for high end restaurants, often in luxury hotels, started to trickle down into neighbourhood eateries and has been widely popularised by the Six by Nico concept, growing and expanding into cities across the UK and globe.

But now, with the cost of living continuing to bite, not to mention VAT and rates for restaurants, is the tasting menu over?

I write this just a few days after chef Dean Banks announced he was scrapping the tasting menu within the Pompadour in Edinburgh’s Caledonian Hotel on Princes Street. This stunning dining room, with its views of Edinburgh Castle, is a historic one and has been the site of Mr Banks’s restaurant after the Galvin Brothers left in 2019.

Mr Banks said he had chosen to move away from a tasting menu, which he has served since opening, due to a change in consumer demand. With starters from £15 and mains starting at £26, and a three-course lunch for just £39.50, the new menu is a far cry from the previous eight-course tasting menu for £105 per person.

Commenting on the launch of the new a la carte menu, Mr Banks said: “Consumers are moving away from multi-course tasting menus, instead preferring restaurants where they can enjoy premium dishes at an accessible price point.

“When considering the future of Dean Banks at the Pompadour, it was important to reflect these changing consumer demands while ensuring the high-quality offering we pride ourselves on remains.”

Edinburgh is home to many fine dining restaurants, and a host of Michelin Stars. But some of the most recent, and celebrated, launches are offering a more “basic” a la carte menu rather than the popular tasting menu.

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One of these, Moss, which has gained rave reviews, was launched as a kind of antithesis to these fine dining establishments, with chef and owner Henry Dobson calling it “rehab for fine dining chefs”. He also spoke, ahead of Moss launching, about how it was going to be a tasting menu restaurant, but the fact that changed due to market saturation.

Mr Dobson said: “We’re now going for more of a neighbourhood price point. We want people to visit once or twice a month.” This isn’t something that tends to happen with an expensive, multiple course only option.

Last year chef patron of The Gannet in Glasgow, Peter McKenna, ditched the eatery’s tasting menu, saying: “What I want is a comprehensive, a la carte menu individually priced, so somebody can come in and they can have a bowl of wild garlic soup with Maryhill cultivated mushrooms or a rack of hogget or a whole lobster. The Gannet has always been a neighbourhood restaurant and I want to reassert that.”

This neighbourhood dining seems to be what’s in demand - somewhere to get delicious, seasonal and comforting bites to eat, in relaxed surroundings without breaking the bank.

While the tasting menu lives on, it does so as part of a larger experience. Inver, for example, is an exploration of its surroundings - both outside the window and what’s on the plate.

It makes sense to eat multiple dishes in such a beautiful place, as part of experiencing it. It is the same with Lyla, Edinburgh’s latest Michelin Star restaurant. This is theatre as food, a whole evening spent experiencing what is in season and how the team have prepared the food for its diners.