I had dinner at Edinburgh's £60m Lost Shore Surf Resort, and there was Saturday night mayhem

When I went to the launch of the Lost Shore Surf Resort in Edinburgh’s Ratho, back in November 2024, I secretly thought, this is extremely cool, but it’ll never work.

Of course, I didn’t say it out loud, since they’d just spent, gulp, £60m, and they might have made me walk the plank, or whatever the surfing equivalent is.

But here I am, it’s barely the cusp of spring, and the place is absolutely hoaching.

There are surfers galore, in their black selkie-like wetsuits, but also strollers, skaters and guests being baked in the wild sauna.

I am going to have to eat my swimming cap.

Or, failing that, choose something from the menu at the resort’s restaurant, Canteen, where they currently have a bar, as well as kitchens from pizza purveyors Civerinos, who have just announced that they’ll be permanent residents, plus Rafa’s brand of Mexican food, and modern sharing plates by Five March.

It’s also open for breakfast and lunch, but we were there for dinner, and the team must have been blindsided by the rush.

I say that because the resort’s founder, Andy Hadden, seemed to be doing some impromptu work as a waiter. As was one of the therapists, from their inhouse spa.

It’s all flippers on deck.

I feel that many of the guests are on-site residents in their pods and lodges, or locals, including a group of teenage boys, who are very well behaved and order a round of pizza slices.

We go for a spread of everything from the very lengthy menu.

“Sweet,” says the server, who clearly approves of our choices.

First to arrive are our pizzas. I’ve gone for a slice of The Civerinos (£6.50), which is a huge skinny-crusted equilateral. I’m quite surprised it’s cold, but still enjoyable, thanks to a vibrantly sweet marinara sauce, pepperoni, Italian sausage, rosemary, black pepper, parsley and garlic oil, with a flurry of Parmesan on top.

The Jalapeno and Chimichurri (£6.25) slice is also chilled, but so are we. This one has a springy topping of mozzarella, as well as the billed herby and spicy ingredients. It’s supposed to have sour cream on it too, but that seems to have ended up on my slice instead. Ker-ching!

We also sample a few of the tacos from Rafa’s, which has a restaurant in Glasgow. They’re three for £12, so it’d be rude not to.

This place doesn’t serve a contemporary twist on Mexican classics, with new-fangled ingredients like pink pickled onions and micro herbs. These are more traditional offerings, with gorgeous rich stewed meat in the Carnitas pork shoulder and Birria braised beef versions, and a few beer-battered king prawns in the Shrimp option. They’re all pimped up with the same accessories of crema, guac, salsa, white onion and coriander, on corny sweet palm-sized tortillas.

The food from Five March is great too.

We had to try “our famous fried spuds” (£6) to see exactly how they’ve become such a mash hit. I think it must be something to do with the quantity. There were about 30 halved baby potatoes, with coppery browned edges, and a large lush blob of aioli for dipping.

We had these with this place’s Catalan hot honey fried chicken (£9) - a huge crispy piece, which was the colour of Tiree sand and billowing like a cauliflower floret, with more humming-ly garlicky aioli lotion on the side, though there was barely any hot honey to be found on the plate.

Oh, and there was also their confit garlic hummus with chicory and za’atar (£7.50), which we thought would be a tiny nibbly portion, but was another full-sized biggie. It came with a huge doorstop of sourdough, as well as the gorgeous silky hummus, the billed ingredients and other pickled veggie nibbly bits for interest.

We could barely move at this point. If they’d made me surf, I wouldn’t have been able to zip up my wetsuit.

Thus, we requested a takeaway box. Had things been different, I would’ve concluded with the red velvet tres leches cake (£4.50) from Rafa’s, or the Five March chocolate cremeaux with blueberry (£7).

Instead, I stuck with a tequila-based Forever Stoked (£10) beauty of a cocktail, also with Ancho Reyes Chilli Liqueur, Lucky Liquor Orange and lime.

My goodness. You can eat and drink VERY well here, even if we did an obscene amount of over-ordering.

I’m glad that they’re serving something more than surfing fuel, and make the restaurant part of the whole Lost Shore experience, which is proving to be - despite this cynic’s secret ruminations - surprisingly popular.

Sweet.

www.lostshore.com