A THOROUGHBRED
The White Horse is that rarest of things – an affordable but very good seafood restaurant
The White Horse has elevated the standard of seafood in the capital
Few gastronomic trends have given me more pleasure than the emergence of genuinely excellent seafood restaurants over the past decade. The list of seafood shrines in coastal locations that are worth a pilgrimage grows by the year, with the East Pier Smokehouse at St Monan’s, Stonehaven’s Tolbooth, Oban’s Ee-Usk, Scrabster’s Captain’s Galley and Achiltibuie’s Salt just some of the many seafood emporiums that have given me huge pleasure.
Thankfully, the trend hasn’t been restricted to seafront locations, with Edinburgh and Glasgow both getting involved. In the west Gamba and Two Fat Ladies at The Buttery are at the pointier end of the spectrum in Glasgow, followed by edgier offerings like Crabshakk, The Finnieston and A’Challtainn.
In Edinburgh, the sad departure of David Ramsden’s gloriously ambitious but beforeits-time Sea Dogs was a blow, but Ondine, Fishers and The Ship on the Shore continue to provide good – if pricey – fishy options. Yet the time was ripe for a fresh infusion of enthusiasm on the seafood front, and it has arrived with the launch of the White Horse Oyster & Seafood Bar on the Royal Mile.
The brainchild of t he team behind t he capital’s hugely successful Chop House steak restaurants, the White Horse is named after the horribly couthy old man’s boozer, which until recently occupied this site on the Canongate. For anyone who ever experienced the spit and sawdust and interesting aromas of The White Horse as a pub, its metamorphosis into a stylish
eatery is nothing short of remarkable. With a bar featuring a huge green marble top, booths along one wall, a huge lobster tank, and then a collection of tables in the rear – all tastefully done in dark blue heritage colours – the Chop House guys have successfully managed to replicate their formula of stylish and classy, yet very relaxed and informal.
Decor and ambience are nothing without good food though, and on this front the White Horse delivers in spades. The first hint of just how good this place might be came with the oysters: we ordered one of each natural (i.e. uncooked) variety on offer – Lindisfarne, Carlingford, Loch Fyne and Argyll – which came with a choice of three sauces. They were great, but it was the grilled rock oysters with kimchi butter and the tempura rock oysters with wasabi mayo, ponzu sauce and pickled ginger which blew our minds. Even people who don’t normally like oysters need to try these: I guarantee they will instantly be converted.
As there were four of us, we opted to try all 10 of the tapas-style small plates, plus the tempura salt and pepper squid. The quality was spectacular, as was the simplicity of conception and the competence of execution; our solitary gripe was that we were a table of four yet virtually all the dishes had three pieces.
Still, this was bite-sized seafood to die for. The standout was the chargrilled octopus with ponzu dressing, but the crab fries with pickled samphire, monkfish satay with toasted nuts, hand-dived scallops with apple, tarragon , sherry caramel and pearl barley, and raw sesame tuna with grapefruit and nasturtium were all absolutely outstanding.
The other dishes were all good, whether it was the crab Scotch egg (which would have been superb had the yolk been runny), Scotch bonnet-cured salmon with avocado and tomato, the king crab legs with burnt lemon mayo, and the fillet tail with red chimichurri.
Thankfully, this is not the sort of place where you feel stuffed, so we had enough space left for pudding. There’s a tendency in seafood restaurants for pudding to be an afterthought, if it’s thought of at all, but once again this was top notch. The faultless tarte tatin was whisper it – as good as in the Barley Bree last month – and the burnt lemon brûlée with lemon curd was almost as good. Only the rather insipid ice cream failed to inspire.
With a good wine list, great cocktails, enticing sharing platters and sensible prices, this newly-opened restaurant is a wonderful addition to Edinburgh’s dining out scene. If you love seafood, my advice is to book yourself in pretty damned quick because this one won’t remain a hidden gem for long.
‘The time was ripe for a fresh infusion of enthusiasm on the seafood front’