This restaurant is outstanding - so it gets my highest score of year

Just an hour from Glasgow (if it’s timed right) and I am pulling into Hamilton Place in Stockbridge bang on 7.30pm.

Late, yes, by 30 minutes for this evening’s sitting but I emailed and they said not-a-problem. Yet, I’m still slightly hmm nervous.

Not because Joe, who has already arrived, has messaged to say: this place is posh. Because frankly: no restaurant can afford to be snooty posh and hope to survive now.

He will later tell me, incidentally, he was spooked when they firmly offer to take his jacket (a blue anorak). I could certainly understand if they had wanted to take it out the back and set fire to it but as they also asked for my jacket, and it’s 100 per cent M&S quality.

I’m concluding they were just being polite. The faintest flutter of nerves anyway, that tang of uncomfortableness? It’s because of this: Eòrna only seats 12 people. Side by side. Round a big curved bar thing. With the lone chef and the open kitchen inside that bar thing, and the maitre’d being the only other person on shift. Intimate then.

Eòrna (Image: free) I have had visions of Edinburgh folk asking probing questions, awkwardness all round, but as this night unravels not a single other diner will speak to us, or look our way.

Well, yes, it is Edinburgh, but it leaves plenty of comfortable space, and there is actually space between us all, and loads of time to yatter; to watch the show and slowly; because it’s a bit of a drop-intro is Eòrna, to realise how good the damn food actually is.

Cutting to the chase? If there is one dish of the whole evening, yes, it is a tasting menu, that clicks the 10/10 slowly into place in my otherwise empty head then it comes about half way through the meal.

And remember this: by then we have already had the beautifully burnished Partridge Pithivier; oven door opening, steam billowing, wafts of fresh-baked pastry rising, each gorgeous dome then quartered and served and tasted and oohed over, the very last remnants of the black pepper jus lifted, shamelessly, by me from my plate with the edge of my knife.

We too by then have polished off, pretty much as soon as we sat down, a pretty little tube of pastry, a micro flower garden on top, Gouda mousse inside, sweet quince lingering aftertaste, and a tiny tart crammed with so much sweet crab punch that I realise all the ones I have ever had before were actually just bland.

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Oh, and a mini Scotch beef tartare that I thought lack seasoning, or coherence.

Of course there was also that Belhaven Smoked Salmon. Their signature dish. The chef placing a rose pink fillet each before us, caviare atop, lemon and beetroot purees squirted, and telling us that he personally had adjusted the level of sugaring versus salt, the timing of the smoking even. Different, somehow tauter, yet not sweet and very good. But honestly? It didn’t blow the socks off.

They stay firmly on right up until the first forkful of that wild halibut. A thick white baton of perfectly seasoned, yes salted, freshness. Tweaked and teased onto a plate with a shellfish bisque on oven wilted tomatoes; sauce Choron (yes béarnaise with tomato) and fennel.

The truth? There’s nothing particularly mind-blowing about these ingredients nowadays, and am pretty sure I had halibut somewhere else last week, it’s simply the skill with which it’s been cooked, the burst of flavours, the texture. Boom. Fantastico.

After that? All the work the chef had put into hand-preparing a loin of Highland venison, making that Great Glen Venison Chorizo, getting out there in the bloody undergrowth to forage elderberries, making his own carrot and appricot puree? Not wasted, still enjoyed but now overshadowed by the fish.

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Things only perking back up to conversation-stopping with the desserts. Firstly: an ephemeral buttermilk panacotta (the leftovers from making their own butter) with such a face-puckering mix of blackcurrant, pistachio and lemon balm that we’re oo-yahing until it suddenly melds memorably together. In a grown-up way. Then? A puffball of Grand Marfneir Souffle with a bitter orange gel and an oval of yoghurt ice cream that we’re advised to push into the souffle where it simply does wonderful things.

Worth the drive then for me? Yes. A very special meal perhaps? Actually? Yes.

Eòrna (Image: Ron Mackenna)

Menu: So hand-knitted it’s just the chef and his front-of-house partner; baking, foraging, butchering Scottish ingredients: the pithivier, that halibut. A wowser tour of skills. 5/5

Service: Intimate, but as it turns out not in a snooty way. Very chilled and welcoming. Super-professional. 5/5

Price: Many, many courses: eight plus canapes for £95. Special occasion stuff. 5/5

Atmosphere: I feared for this given just 12 diners at one long bar, but it was cool and chilled with a comfy vibe. 4/5

Food: You see it all being prepared; that fresh baton of halibut was outstanding; the just-baked pithivier an experience, Grand Marnier Souffle memorable. Outstanding. 10/10

29/30

Eòrna
68 Hamilton Place,
Edinburgh 
0131-531-4680

Ron Mackenna reviews restaurants for The Herald. He always pays his own way and never announces his presence at the restaurant. He also never accepts invitations or freebies – which is why you can trust his reviews.