I've tried plenty of Edinburgh restaurants' set menus, and these are the absolute best
There’s a move towards set menus, and we firmly approve
There is no phrase as beautiful as prix fixe.
We love this style of dining, as there’s no blindsiding when it comes to blowing your pocket money.
Last year, tasting menus were the focus in Edinburgh, but there’s currently a return to a simple set menu, with less choice than an a la carte, and a single, usually more palatable, price. It’s a package holiday, in food form.
We’ve been around the block, and these are a few of our recent favourites.
Tapa
If you’re feeling skint, then this Leith restaurant offers what we’d vouch is the best deal in town. We visited and thought we’d entered a time portal to the Nineties, it was that cheap. For £15pp, if you visit Tuesday to Saturday from noon until 5pm, you can choose from two tapas, with choices including Iberian black pig cheeks with manchego and truffle oil infused polenta, or fried baby squid with garlic salsa. Included in the price, you also get padron peppers and patatas mixta in abundance.
19 Shore Place, Edinburgh (0131 576 6776, www.tapaedinburgh.co.uk)
Those looking for a weekday set lunch should try this fab restaurant, which is in the former premises of long term burger joint resident Bell’s Diner and is owned by Dale Mailley, formerly of The Lookout and Gardener’s Cottage. For just £14.95, you can have bread, olives and saucisse seche, followed by a main course like ling, mussels and sweet cicely, bistro salad and dripping chips, all rounded off by a dreamy dish of strawberries, clotted cream and honeycomb. You can’t say fairer than that.
7 St Stephen Street, Edinburgh, www.stockbridgeeatinghouse.co.uk
We thought we’d died and gone to heaven when we tried the £49 lunch menu at this glorious restaurant, where top chef Roberta Hall McCarron is spinning the pots. It’s £49pp for three courses, with a set starter and dessert, and two choices of main - current St Bride’s guinea fowl with Alsace bacon and girolles, or Chalk Stream trout, tempura broccoli and watercress. Add matched wines for £39pp. Or, go big with the £95pp for five courses menu, and add vino for another £65. Go on. It’s a great value experience that isn’t easily forgotten
14 Bonnington Road, Edinburgh (0131 556 6600, www.thelittlechartroom.com)
It’s not cheap to eat in one of Edinburgh’s most sybaritic dining rooms. However, you can get the five-star hotel treatment for £99 if you sign up to their new three-course menu, which includes a choice of three starters, two mains and three desserts, and is bookended by canapes, plus bread and butter, then a visit from their renowned sweetie trolley. The menu might include dishes such as hand-dived scallop, garden pea and Ayrshire bacon, and Shetland halibut, artichoke, red pepper marmalade and courgette.
1 Princes Street, Edinburgh (0131 557 6727, www.roccofortehotels.com)
The Abbeyhill sister restaurant to Edinburgh’s lauded Timberyard recently launched a fantastic lunchtime set menu, at £25 for two courses, £30 for three. It’s available Friday to Sunday, and includes a starter of St Bride’s chicken and ham hock terrine, followed by mussel spaghettini, tomatoes and nduja, with ricotta ice cream, strawberry and fig leaf for pud. That pasta dish is very boot-filling, but if you really want them to have to roll you out, you can add on optional pre-starter snacks that include a haggis dauphine with black garlic and walnut (£4) or Cumbrae oyster, horseradish and elderflower (£4), among other things
1-7 Montrose Terrace, Edinburgh (0131 605 0088, wwwmontroserestaurant.co)
Five set courses for £30pp sounds like an excellent deal to us. We’re not sure how they keep the prices so rock bottom, at this Edinburgh Festival pop-up restaurant from Modou Diagne, of Glasgow’s Trust by Modou and 111 by Modou. Expect a blind set tasting menu, and you can add matching drinks for a further £28. They’re in situ on evenings only until August 24. Catch them before they disappear into the ether.
Somewhere by Nico, 39a Charlotte Lane, Edinburgh, www.trustbymodou.co.uk
The Sunday roast - especially the porchetta option - at this box fresh Stockbridge brasserie is out of this world. However, if you’re visiting on a weekday evening from 4-6pm, you can take advantage of their new offer of two courses for £25 or three for £28. This Evening Darling menu includes classic dishes like prawn cocktail, steak frites and lemon posset. Also, we’re not sure if it counts as a set menu, as it’s just one course, but they’re also doing a Workers’ Lunch on weekdays, 12-3pm, which features mains such as Arbroath Smokie fish pie, with roast carrots, broccoli and salsa verde.
16-18 Hamilton Place, Edinburgh (0131 563 0404, www.thecaptaindarling.com)
Another Stockie favourite, this Italian wine bar and restaurant is offering one course for £16, two for £22 or £26 for three, from its set lunch menu, which has two choices per course. We’d definitely swither over the main courses of mezze maniche pasta, with tomato, aubergine, basil, salted ricotta, or the breaded chicken breast, with lemon crushed new potatoes and aioli. There are two other crowd pleasers for pudding - the affogato, or panna cotta with Amarena cherries and crushed amaretti. The set lunch menu can be paired with Sotto’s lunchtime only Coravin at Cost picks - where a selected bottle of wine from Sotto's cellar is poured by the glass at cost price.
28 Deanhaugh Street, Edinburgh (0131 332 3621, www.sottoedinburgh.com)
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.