When going to seed is most assuredly a mark of quality
Gaby Soutar suspects there’s a giant hamster with an Alan Partridge playlist in the kitchen at new Leith eatery Duthchas, but this new independent is a culinary treat from start to finish
Remember Storm Kathleen, from a couple of weeks back? She was bad. Great Junction Street in Edinburgh became a wind tunnel, and my hair was puffed up into an unintentional beehive. We wished we’d put stones in our pockets, as we braced against the gale.
Thankfully, my party made it to number 187, and the door shut behind us like an airlock on the Starship Enterprise. It was bittersweet, since I did love the former resident, Aurora, but it’s good to see another independent, from the team behind Purslane in Stockbridge, filling the slot, including executive chef Paul Gunning.
In common with loads of the Capital’s new restaurants, the focus is on tasting menus. The main offering is the sixcourse version, for £95pp, but we tried the Wee Taster Menu, which is £55pp for three courses, bookended by canapes and petit-fours.
You can upgrade with a wine pairing for an additional £25pp, or £55pp for the premium version, but we tried their cocktails – a toddy of a clarified butter old fashioned (£12) and the tongue twizzler (£12), with citrus and smoky mezcal.
Then the canapes started to arrive – consecutively, which is rather unusual. The first, listed as “venison/citrus/ redcurrant” looked a bit like a round dog treat, but tasted gorgeous, with meat in a ring of pastry, micro-herbs and a marmaladey sauce.
Number two – served on a pile of non-edible sunflower seeds – was a little haggis bon-bon, quilted in a tattie scone jacket, and with a dod of brown sauce and pickled neep on top. It was a single bite of comfort and joy.
The third canape – served on a wooden coaster and sunflower seeds (I know, there must be a giant hamster working behind the stove) – was a gorgeous mackerel-filled pani puri, with leaves of beetroot and chervil on top. Our final bite was probably my favourite – a fine tube of feuille de brick pastry stuffed with a cauliflower and blue cheese puree. Served on a bed of decorative sunflower seeds, naturally.
The bread course segued into the sunshiney fish course – a lovely burnish-skinned parallelogram of sea bass, marinated in an acidic escabeche, and an additional pile of cured fish nibs, with pickled veggies, all served in an oystershell-shaped bowl.
Next up was the lamb, a slice of rump, and a tiny croquette, as well as a little bit of dauphinoise, asparagus, wild garlic and crispy kale. This dish was enjoyable but didn’t really pop for me, though the bonnie pudding of rhubarb, pistachio and vanilla did. There were little cubes of ginger sponge, a striped rhubarb jelly, pistachio ice-cream, and lots of crumbs and fruity bits.
Gorgeous, and it wasn’t over yet. We were then each presented with a wooden box, filled with cocoa nibs (NO, don’t eat them), and petit fours – a buttery financier, a dark chocolate chip sable, a cube of blackberry jelly and a rich coffee chocolate. I ate all of mine, then his too. So good.
This is an interesting place. It’s very much ploughing its own furrow. You won’t see any particularly trendy ingredients on the menu, and they love serving things on seeds. The playlist is a bit Alan Partridge.
Still, though we’d chosen the downsized taster menu, we felt extremely spoiled.