Edinburgh Dining Journal

Scotland is cool. Scotland is hip. Major food magazines are discovering Scotland, as well they should. You can eat like a king in Scotland, and the scenery ain’t bad either.

By way of background, I’ve been working off-and-on in Edinburgh for the last ten months. For much of last year, I was there three weeks out of every four. Lately, it’s one week out of four. I’ve eaten in dozens of different restaurants, and on each trip I sample at least one place I haven’t been before. This week, I took in three restaurants that were new to me.

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Oloroso (33 Castle Street), which is only about two years old, won Tony Singh “Scottish Restaurant Chef of The Year” in 2003. The website observes:

Oloroso, which is Spanish for aromatic and is also a style of sherry, occupies a key top floor corner site on Edinburgh’s bustling George Street. Due to its unique position, the large roof terrace provides stunning views across both the Firth of Forth and Edinburgh Castle.

The décor is modern, sleek, and spare. As there is no street entrance, Oloroso’s foot traffic is probably next to none. Nevertheless, it was comfortably full on my Monday night visit, so the word has gotten out. Note that the lifts go only to the third floor, so you need to be able to climb a flight of stairs.

Until Oloroso, I had found only two types of fine dining experiences in Edinburgh: Scottish and French (or some mixture of the two). Singh finds his own way, and this alone makes Oloroso worth a visit. A few of the dishes have an obvious Indian inspiration, but it is not an Indian restaurant. I ordered crawfish and asparagus risotto to start, followed by filet of ostrich. If you haven’t had ostrich, it’s a red mea tasting somewhat like venison. It came with a tangy dipping sauce, which is perhaps a nod to Singh’s Indian roots.

The menu changes daily, with most appetizers priced around £7 and most mains around £17. There is also a grill menu offering several cuts of Scottish beef. My dinner, with one drink and without wine, came to £31, including tip. To sample the work of a fine chef like Singh, this is an extraordinary bargain, and there seems to be no other restaurant in Edinburgh quite like it. Oloroso is definitely worth a look, both for the food and the scenery.

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Edinburgh has just two Michelin star restaurants: Number One, in the basement of the Balmoral Hotel, and Martin Wishart, at 54 The Shore in the port district of Leith. I’ve been to Number One several times, but Tuesday was my first trip to Martin Wishart.

While Wishart’s food may be comparable to Jeff Bland’s at Number One, the surroundings most assuredly are not. Enter Number One’s basement location, and you are instantly transported. In Wishart’s storefront on a busy street, the food must compete with noisy distractions.

Martin Wishart’s mission is to persuade you to order one of the tasting menus. The five-course tasting menu is priced at £48. (There is also a six-course menu.) Order an appetizer and main course a la carte, and it will set you back about £40 before dessert, so you might as well take the tasting menu. The waitstaff hints disingenuously that Wishart sometimes throws surprises into the tasting menu, but in fact everything they served was available a la carte. I compared notes with some colleagues who’d been to Wishart’s recently, and they had the same experience of “surprises” hinted at, but not delivered.

Every course arrives with an essay-length oration about what you are eating. Nothing at Martin Wishart is simple. The amuse-bouche was four tasty bites, all different, arranged like an art sculpture. Amusing indeed, but I forgot the essay and had no idea what they were. A starter of asparagus and tiny strings of calimari failed to impress, but the next three courses were all winners: rabbit terrine, monkfish over a mackerel puree, and duck (marinated for two days, we’re told). All of these came with similar essay-length descriptions that I cannot recall. The meal ended with a “pre-dessert” (some kind of yogurt confection) and a small dessert course (cherries, pistachio ice cream, and something else from the bakery oven that tasted absolutely heavenly).

As with most tasting menus at restaurants like Wishart’s, the sommelier will happily recommend a different wine for each course, but that’s more wine than I can take on a work night, or indeed on most any night, after I’ve already had a pre-dinner cocktail. He did recommend a sensible glass of white to go with the first part of the meal, and a côte du rhone to go with the end of it.

All of this cost about £71 for one, including tip.

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I have seldom found a truly impressive steak in Britain, but I keep trying to find one. The search has ended. Champany Inn cannot be bettered. Located in the town of Linlithgow, Champany is about 30 minutes’ drive from Central Edinburgh. It’s run by a husband and wife team, Clive and Anne Davidson. Anne is visible all evening long, while Clive heads the kitchen.

This quote is from the website:

The buildings at Champany Corner that now make up Champany Inn, date from the 16th Century and the time of Mary, Queen of Scots. These buildings now house sixteen luxury bedrooms, the Main Dining Room specialising in Aberdeen Angus beef and Shetland Salmon and our award winning cellar which has been voted the Best in Britain on two occasions. The smaller Chop and Ale House offers bistro style meals and serves probably the best hamburger in Britain.

The ill-defined Michelin ratings claim that one star is “worth a stop,” two stars is “worth a detour,” and three stars is “worth a trip.” By this definition, Champanys is a two-star experience. It is without doubt worth a detour, and indeed a very significant one. Given that it is located in the middle of nowhere, many have obviously found it worth a trip on its own. This is the most memorable meal I have had in Edinburgh, and I have had plenty of very good ones.

The restaurant will happily offer you a choice from any number of non-beef dishes, such as duck, salmon, langoustines, or lobster. But beef is Champany’s raison d’etre, and it’s beef that all four in our party had. Three of us chose the porterhouse, one the sirloin. Champany’s offers a variety of cuts, including stip loin, ribeye, Pope’s eye (ever heard of that), or chateaubriand. Whichever you choose, you get a thick, hearty piece of meat cooked to perfection. The website explains:

Clive Davidson is proud of his meat. He selects his beef from herds of prime cattle grazing off acres of lush Aberdeenshire countryside. The carcasses are hung for a full three weeks during which all the succulent flavours that have made Scottish beef such an internationally renowned delicacy, are held and matured.

Before placing on the grill the beef is first dipped into an exclusive sauce created specially by Clive for sealing the meat so that none of the precious flavours escape. As he explained, “All steaks should be sealed before grilling, and you can do this quite simply by sprinkling them with brown sugar. Once on the grill this will caramelise, sealing the meat and encouraging the outer flesh to cook quickly while the inside remains pink and moist”. However, Clive’s secret recipe for his sauce contains other special ingredients that will enhance still further the flavours of the naturally tender meat.

Starters are similarly impressive. Champany’s smokes its own salmon. Served hot, with hollandaise sauce, the taste is exquisite. As at many steakhouses, portions are enormous. This so-called “starter” could have been a main course at many restaurants. Quoting the website again:

Words almost fail me to describe the subtle excellence of the hot smoked salmon. Fleshy and succulent, it can be cut with a fork which breaks it into pungent morsels of sublime Scottish salmon warm and aromatic with a surprisingly gentle woody bouquet.

Champany’s is elegantly decorated, with its oak panel dining room and candle-lit tables. Service is luxurious. To go with the ample wine list previously mentioned, Champany’s has an impressive selection of liqeurs, aperitifs, and single malt whiskys. They even distil their own cognac (while of course offering many others), which we found surprisingly good.

Dinner for four, including before and after-dinner drinks, appetizers, steaks, side dishes, and two bottes of modestly-priced wine, ran to £370.

Marc on Landmarc

Note: For a more recent review of Landmarc in TriBeCa, click here. For a review of Landmarc at the Time-Warner Center, click here.

Landmarc is the latest cool restaurant in TriBeCa, a neighborhood that already has plenty of them. It’s named for chef-owner Marc Murphy, who cut his teeth at Le Cirque, La Fourchette, Layla, and Cellar in the Sky, among other places. Landmarc has more humble aspirations than these temples of haute cuisine. It has the feel of a neighborhood hangout, with exposed brick walls and waitstaff in black t-shirts. The menu offers a range of French, Italian, and plain old American comfort food.

I ambled into Landmarc today for lunch. It was about 1pm, and the restaurant was around 1/3rd full. It actually got a tad busier by the time I left, but the downstairs was still well under 1/2 full. I took a look upstairs, where only two or three tables were occupied. There is a gorgeous 3/4ths-enclosed booth that the manager said is available for parties of 6.

I don’t like to drink before the evening. The ample selection of half-bottles of wine was duly noted, but the staff did not mind that I preferred tap water. I ordered the asparagus soup (yummy) and steak au poivre. Not much can be done to improve an age-old recipe like steak au poivre. Landmarc served a thick piece of meat, crusty on the outside and cooked to a perfect medium rare on the inside, topped with onions. The pepper sauce got the job done, but it was a bit runny and soaked the bottom layer of french fries. The fries that the sauce didn’t get to were crisp and medium-thickness. Landmarc offers six choices of desserts for $3 apiece, or you can have one of each for $15. I was far too full to try even one, but it has to be the best dessert bargain in town.

Service was attentive and efficient at the beginning of the meal, but visits to my table seemed to tail off near the end. They kept me waiting for the steak a bit longer than they should, but all was forgiven once I tasted it. The manager did make a point of coming around to every table and saying hello.

For a place that doesn’t take reservations for parties less than six, both the placement and the size of the bar seem to be a miscalculation. It’s at the back of the restaurant, so patrons who want to wait at the bar before their table is ready have to pass through the downstairs dining area. There are only five bar stools, so I suspect it will get crowded back there, potentially a distraction for those who’ve already been seated.

I don’t know if Landmarc will take a cell phone number and call you when they’re ready. If so, I suspect Buster’s Garage, the NASCAR-themed sports bar across the street, will pick up a lot of the overflow. I read in the minutes for Community Board 1’s March meeting that there have already been compaints in the neighborhood about the noise at the newly-opened Buster’s.

It hasn’t been open long, but Landmarc is already a destination restaurant. In an LA Times article yesterday, “Dining Frenzy Takes Gotham,” Landmarc was listed as one of eight hot new restaurants in New York. Amanda Hesser’s review in the NYT gave Landmarc one star, which seemed to me correct (in a system that doesn’t allow half-stars).

Landmarc (179 West Broadway between Leonard and Worth Streets, TriBeCa)

Food: *½
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *½

Baluchi's In TriBeCa

Am I the only one who thinks “Baluchi’s” should be an Italian joint? Well, it’s not. Baluchi’s is a chain of about a dozen Indian restaurants, with locations all over town. The newest branch is at the corner of Greenwich & Warren Sts, in the southwest corner of TriBeCa.

The site hasn’t been a lucky one. It’s a bit far from the TriBeCa dining mainstream, situated across the street from a parking lot and caddy-corner from a grade school. Some of the apartments of southern Battery Park City are just a few short blocks away, but Baluchi’s doesn’t seem to be drawing crowds yet. Its predecessor on that site was a nice Mexican restaurant that closed after 9/11.

After a late night at the office, I wandered in to find Baluchi’s empty, except for a large table of about 15 investment bankers, who no doubt were happy to be able to talk shop without annoying anyone. That they bypassed the nearby, and better known, Salaam Bombay, is a clue that Baluchi’s is attracting the smart money.

The authentic décor is tastefully done, while avoiding any of the usual Indian restaurant clichés. Dark wood tables give a feeling of solidity, and they’re a comfortable distance apart. The laminated menu is a liability, reminding one of a coffee shop. The magic begins when the food arrives, served in individual copper pots. Salmon curry was exceptionally tender, perfectly cooked, and accompanied with a flavorful sauce. The waiter even threw in the basmati rice for nothing. The dish disappeared off my plate all too quickly. The service was attentive, but with the restaurant practically empty it had damned well better be.

Baluchi’s in TriBeCa is one of those hidden neighborhood gems that will never get a newspaper review, but quietly delivers the goods. If you’re in TriBeCa and in the mood for Indian food, it’s worth a detour.

Baluchi’s (275 Greenwich Street at Warren Street, TriBeCa)

Food: *
Service: **
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

Churrascaria Plataforma

Note: The Tribeca branch of Churrascaria Plataforma closed at the end of 2013 (the midtown branch is still in business). As of September 2014, the space is chef Floyd Cardoz’s new restaurant, White Street.

*

Churrascaria Platforma has been serving Brazilian Rodizio in midtown (316 W 49th near 8th Ave) since 1996. As the website explains:

Churrascaria (choo-rah-scah-REE-ah) is the name used to describe a restaurant that serves meat, mostly grilled, and Rodizio is a method of serving the different cuts of meat that originated in the south of Brazil in the early 1800’s.

The concept is to serve a wide variety of different cuts of beef, pork, lamb, chicken, etc., in succession, to each diner individually right at their table, thus there is not a traditional menu. The restaurant features a fixed-price continuous tableside service.

A TriBeCa branch opened 2½ months ago. According to the maitre d’, it’s smaller than its uptown cousin. The high-gloss decor keeps up with the Joneses on a street that has Montrachet just to the north, and Bouley just to the south.

The young lady who escorted us to our table initially took us to a spot at the back of the restaurant, up against a wall. “I’m not supposed to do this,” she said, “but would you prefer a better location?” Of course we would. She next showed us a table adjoining the kitchen, which didn’t seem to be an improvement. Finally we got a table with a great view of the appetizer bar, the live band, and the sommelier’s station. Why didn’t she just start with that?

The maitre d’ brought two coaster-sized plastic discs, which he placed in front of us with the red side facing up. He explained that dinner starts with the appetizer bar, but he cautioned us not to fill up, because there are 18 main courses after that. When you’ve finished your appetizers, you flip the plastic disc onto its green side. That signals the servers to bring on the meat and fish courses, and they’ll keep coming till you turn the disc over once again.

The appetizer bar was hard to resist, offering a range of salads, cheeses, sushi bites, and seafood. Tuna tartare was perhaps the most memorable of the bunch, but there were many I just had to ignore, knowing that the 18 main dishes were the reason we had come. You could go home well fed if the appetizer bar were the whole meal, but of course it is not.

The main courses arrive faster than you can eat them, but not in any kind of order. Generally they come on skewers (a few are wheeled around on carts), and the server cuts off as small or as large a piece as you want. They tend to offer small portions, which is sensible considering there are 18 of them. Anyone who can try them all must have a prodigious appetite. I could not.

No single dish makes the meal, and indeed they are uneven. Ribeye steak and filet mignon were mouth-wateringly tender, and two different lamb dishes were done to perfection, but a chicken entree was leathery, and pork ribs stubbornly clung to the bone. Yet, the overall impression is so favorable that one hesitates to criticize the occasional item that fails to work. For fish-lovers, Plataforma offers salmon and sea bass, but don’t make the trip unless you’re a carnivore.

Plataforma has no menu, so you’re never sure what you haven’t seen yet. By the time beef ribs and suckling pig came along, I was simply too full to give them a try. Had I known they were on offer, I would have made sure to leave room. If you happen to know that you’d like a particular dish, the maitre d’ will have it brought to you. But you don’t always know what you haven’t seen.

A menu would also help clarify in advance what the $45 prix fixe actually includes. It turns out the appetizer and main course are in, but dessert and coffee are not. I didn’t feel the least bit overcharged at $7 for a piece of cheesecake and $2 for coffee, but when you’re told “fixed price” you might reasonably assume it includes everything but the liquor.

Churrascaria Plataforma is a fun night out. I stumbled home several pounds heavier, but satisfied.

Churrascaria Plataforma (221 West Broadway between White & Franklin Streets, TriBeCa)

Food: **
Service: *½
Ambiance: *½
Overall: **

Fish by the Pound

Note: Click here for a full review of Thalassa.

*

In Steve Cuozzo’s Menus from Hell piece in yesterday’s Post, he reserved the bulk of his criticism for Megu (cited below) and Mix in New York. But he also mentioned that “Manhattan’s modern Greek seafood places make you order fish by the pound; miscalculate and you’ll go broke on enough livraki to feed the whole room.”

I wondered where on earth that could be, but sure enough I wandered yesterday into Thalassa. Sure enough, its pricey entrees are listed by the pound. I didn’t stay for supper, but I was sufficiently intrigued to take a tour.

Now, Cuozzo’s exaggerating when he says that you could order enough to feed the whole room by mistake, but he nevertheless has a point. Precisely how much Dover Sole are you getting, and how much will it set you back, when you choose that entree?

Thalassa is yet another suave, chic, designed-to-the-hilt newcomer in TriBeCa. Coincidentally, two colleagues were there yesterday sharing pre-dinner drinks and munchies, and they urged me to check out the raw fish on ice, “so fresh, they wink at you.” I was startled when a prawn wiggled its legs. The lobster didn’t seem to move, but the maitre d’ assured me they’re just sleeping. As the real dinner crowd hadn’t arrived yet, he was only too happy to show me around the place and explain every fish on offer that day.

Thalassa has been open fifteen months, but it has yet to earn a mention from the Paper of Record.

Thalassa (179 Franklin Street between Greenwich and Hudson Streets, TriBeCa)

Mega Megu

Note: Megu in Trbeca closed in October 2014, as did a second outpost in midtown, across the street from the United Nations. A new Megu opened in late 2016 in the Dream Hotel, in far west Chelsea.

*

Call it the Law of Unintended Consequences. In today’s Post, Steve Cuozo railed against restaurant menus that are “less comprehensible than the federal tax code.” As Exhibit A he cited Megu, the 13,000 sq. ft. Japanese destination in TriBeCa.

Cuozo is absolutely right. But because Megu is on the way home, his non-review prompted me to stop by anyway. In a word, Wow! This place is designed to the hilt. At Nobu prices it’ll have to be good, but the place is spectacular.

I dropped in just to have a drink. I wound up having two, plus a couple of pieces of sushi, and that set me back about $45. However, it is not busy yet, at least not at 6:30pm on a weeknight, and the bartenders treated me like royalty. They conceded that the menu is a work in progress, and they admitted the version they showed me was half the size of what they started with.

You can see what Cuozo was getting at. As he put it, “What it lacks are such basic facts as which items are suitable for starters and which for main courses; which dishes are best shared — to say nothing of what ‘mysterious vegetable’ might be.”

But Megu astounds with the gorgeous modern Japanese fusion decor. To judge the food on two pieces of sushi would be unreasonable, but the menu certainly competes with the best of high-end Japonoiserie. For now, two stars.

Megu (62 Thomas Street between Church Street and West Broadway, TriBeCa)

A Diner That Sleeps, in a City that Doesn't

Two friends and I popped into the Brooklyn Diner last night after a concert at Carnegie Hall that ran late. The place pulls in a lot of post-concert business, as it’s one of the better choices in the area for a light bite.

Unfortunately, the kitchen closes at 11:30pm, and we just missed the chance to order real food. We were able to order desserts, but my diabetic friend was out of luck.

Now, I accept that the Brooklyn Diner can choose to serve dinner whenever it wants, but we all found it odd to find the kitchen closed at a place that caters to late dining, in a neighborhood where one expects to be able to do so, and at an hour when business was still brisk.

Brooklyn Diner (212 W. 57th St. between Sixth & Seventh Avenues, West Midtown)

O’Neals’ Restaurant, Lincoln Center

Note: O’Neals’ closed in mid-2010. A branch of Stephen Hanson’s Atlantic Grill replaced it.

*

This venerable Lincoln Center restaurant re-opened fairly recently after a two-year renovation. O’Neals’ is trying to become more up-scale, with entrees in the $20 to $32 range. At about $4 less, they would have been fairly priced. Cream of asparagus soup and veal risotto were satisfactory, but I won’t be rushing back.

O’Neals’ (49 W. 64th St. between Broadway & Central Park West, Upper West Side)