A beautiful fishy feast that’s well worth dressing up for
Lyla’s seafood-focused five-course lunch was a sumptuous triumph from start to finish, writes Gaby Soutar, who may even be considering a second outing for that rarely seen posh frock
I’m like a newsreader, in that nobody ever sees my legs. It takes a lot for me to get into a frock these days, but I got those dusty pegs out, just for Lyla.
Owned by the team behind a couple of Edinburgh’s best food destinations, Aizle, Tipo and Noto, I knew this seafood-focused 28-cover venue was going to be something special.
It’s on the ground floor of what was the late and much lauded chef Paul Kitching’s restaurant with rooms, 21212. His spirit remains, in the photographs on the walls in reception, the signature decor, and the fact that his partner Katie O’Brien has kept on the hotel side of the business.
If you’re here for Lyla’s 10-course tasting menu (£165pp) evening sitting, you’re taken up to the first floor for a champagne trolley service. We were having the £65pp five-course lunch, available Fridays and Saturdays only, so were led straight through to the dining room.
Instead of the matching wine pairing (add £45, or £25 for soft), we did cocktails instead. I ordered the sweet and sour Smoked Redcurrant Clover Club (£16), with Pickering’s Gin, Cocchi Rosa and redcurrant, and he went for the Tommy’s (£18), which featured Neta Espadin Mezcal, Tapatio Blanco Tequila and agave.
Then the snacks came out, looking arty on their plinths. “They’re one mouthful jobs, to avoid carnage,” said our server. Despite this, my husband tried to do the lobster option in two chomps, and half the orange roe bounced across the linen tablecloth. I ate mine neatly, and it was gorgeous, with a crispy shell, kohlrabi, sake and a touch of lemon oil.
Our other “snack” was an upmarket take on a cheese sarnie, with Alp blossom fromage in the centre of two wafers and the top dusted by meadow flower petals. However, the pièce de résistance was the laminated brioche. These neat bronzed cylinders came with Ampersand butter and some of their koji cultured butter with caperberries.
A succession of lovely things followed. The cured brill was almost too pretty to eat, served with radish petals and stamens of Exmoor caviar, plus a cucumber, apple and jalapeno water. This was followed by a piece of Anstruther turbot, poached in butter and served with beurre blanc, macerated mussels, plus tiny discs of pickled pumpkin and artichoke on top.
The main course quail was dreamily soft, with a layer of truffle butter under the skin. It came with a tiny tart blob of Madeira jam, radicchio and a sliver of liver, plus a rich mushroom jus. On the side was a mushie tart, piled high with a potato thatch and micro herbs.
The penultimate course is a palate cleanser of red pepper parfait, plus Yorkshire rhubarb and a drift of goat’s milk snow. After this came a chocolate dessert with salted milk ice-cream scooped onto a pile of umami crumbs, alongside other pretty things, like a little cigarillo stuffed with Cointreau cream, kumquat and a chocolate delice with a layer of barley koji custard and chicory root.
The coda of the lunchtime experience was a pair of praline bonbons and two coffee choux craquelins. My gosh.
I’m not always a fan of tasting menus, but this flowed beautifully. Perhaps I should return for chef patron Stuart Ralston’s full 10 courses. The frock might be getting a rare second outing.