How the chef at new Edinburgh restaurant is going to shake up the neighbourhood

This job may take quite a while. There are around 90 of them, and they contain various preserves. What’s inside?

“Right now I'm looking at dried cherry blossom candy, as well as elderflowers and linden leaves," says the chef, who grew up in Angus. “Also several different types of rose that we've tried, all with slightly different flavour profiles. Some are sweet, some are bitter, some are deliberately burnt a little bit and then dried. All sorts of things”.

It’s safe to say that, when Dobson’s exciting restaurant Moss opens on January 29 in the spot that was formerly occupied by Satine Saint Stephen, you might expect to try something you’ve never tried before.

The dishes sound Alice-in-Wonderland-tastic. There will be options including duck that’s been smoked using the shavings that were leftover from when they handmade the lime wood tables, ceviche that’s cured with wood sorrel acid, and a bone marrow dish that features beef dripping and garum focaccia.

They’ll attempt to source all the produce from Scotland, with some of it - including a special breed of sheep from the Outer Hebrides - coming from Dobson’s family farm.

That’s not all. The chef recently got his gun license and has stalked and stashed a few roe deer to go on the menu, while his mum is a gardener, and she’s provided some of the botanicals. They’ve even kept the tableware aspect in the family, since Dobson’s wife, Akiko Matsuda, is a sculptor and ceramicist who recently opened a studio, ViViVi, in the Capital’s Leith area.

It’s all very hands-on for a chef who, as well as a stint as a pupil at Ballymaloe Cookery School, and spells at Michelin-starred Tokyo restaurants, Maz and Kabi, has experience working at three-Michelin-star restaurant, Noma.

“That was actually my first proper kitchen job. It was my foundation, really, for how kitchens are supposed to run. At that stage, I was 22 and very much at the bottom of the totem pole, but it was a really invigorating place to work and learning all of their systems was amazing,” he says. “I ended up working in the fermentation lab, which really inspired me to get into food science and to explore the traditions of European and Japanese fermentation techniques. I loved it so much. But the levels of pressure and working hours were a bit much for me, especially at that stage of my career. It was 18 hour days, and you're expected to perform under the highest levels of pressure every single second of the day, and it gets a bit exhausting”.

According to Dobson, there will be less stress when he’s his own boss. He’s spent the last couple of years doing research and development, with trips to Scandinavia and East Asia, and that learning process won’t stop when Moss opens.

There will be hard work, but also time to think and plan.

“I'm building this business in a way that really prioritises work life balance. We'll only be open four days a week, and then on Tuesday, the team will be paid but we're not going to be doing service,” he says. “We're going to use that day to visit suppliers, go foraging, and work on things that we've always wanted to work on, but have never had the opportunity to. So I'm deliberately building this business to be a really nice place to work for all of us”.

The menu will be a la carte, rather than a tasting option. According to him, the tasting menu market is already ‘overserved’ in the city.

Also, although the food list will be ever-evolving and something of a ‘freeform affair’, there are favourites that will be permanent fixtures. For example, they’re hoping that their chiffon cake - a very light sponge, which they’re dubbing ‘memory foam chiffon’ - will be permanent, but can be served with, say, plums or apples, to adapt to the season.

“That’s something that will be on the menu a lot. Also the crystal bread, which is a translucent bread we make out of potato starch. Again, it's a lovely vehicle that has the wow factor, so we can use that technique to highlight seasonal ingredients,” he says. “One of the dishes I'm very excited about is our vegetarian gnudi, which is an Italian ricotta dumpling, but we'll be making the ricotta ourselves, so we'll be splitting our own milk, and using the whey for a different dish. It’ll be served with Blue Murder - a blue cheese made by Alex James, the bass player from Blur. This will come with candied Jerusalem artichoke and an onion and cep broth. That'll probably be on our menu a lot, actually”.

As far as choosing Stockbridge to set up this exciting restaurant, it was just a case of the right time for the property to become available.

“I'm fairly new here. I've known Edinburgh my whole life, but I only started living here a year ago,” he says. “When we started getting into the scene and doing market research, I identified Leith, Stockbridge, and the centre of town, as the three places I was interested in. The premises came up and I love the feel of it. It's a nice size, but it's not too big either. It just worked and felt good”.

Moss will be another exciting addition to a burgeoning foodie neighbourhood.

They’re already pals with the people at Stockbridge Eating House and bakery Lannan, where the massive queues are always going viral.

“There’s a really nice community here, and we feel like we’re really part of a great crew,” Dobson says.

112 St Stephen Street, Edinburgh. Bookings at Moss are now open, see https://www.mossedn.co.uk/reservations