Kitchin

“Forewarned is forearmed”, I’d planned to call this review of N1’s birthday dinner at the Kitchin restaurant in Leith, Edinburgh, on 23.11.10. But quite apart from the fact that calling a spade a spade and a Kitchin a Kitchin gets me more hits from the google machine, “forewarned” turned out to be a false alarm. We’d been warned that the Kitchin’s wine mark-up reached four times retail, and our memory of their wine list from our first visit there, not long after they got their Michelin star in 2007, was not particularly good. So we decided to drink champagne at home before going down to Leithshire for dinner, enabling me to smugly report how we had avoided an egregious mark-up. But that was not the way it turned out; a perusal of the Kitchin wine list soon shows it is in line with the standard Edinburgh three times retail mark-up (as opposed to the more competitive two-and-a-half normal in London). It might err towards three-point-two, there may be some outliers, and there are no obvious bargains, but essentially, Kitchin’s wine list is priced as you’d expect for a smarter Edinburgh restaurant.

Kitchin certainly ought to be good; it comes highly garlanded, having just been voted UK Restaurant of the Year 2010 in the Observer Food Monthly Awards. The dining room is smart, as you’d expect, the average diner very casual. It’s rather a dark room, cosy for a wintry dinner, dingy for a summertime lunch, with a grand window into Kitchin’s kitchen. (“They don’t look very happy in there,” N1 observed.) With various shapes of squash along the wall, Kitchin is letting you know seasonal awareness is the theme, and we sat down to a bowl of vegetable crisps, arguing about what each was. Beetroot was obvious by colour, parsnip and carrot were fairly clear, but we didn’t know if another was swede or turnip. The crisps came with a cheesey choux pastry bunlet, while the breads that followed were unremarkable save for a sun-dried tomato bun with curry powder – an ingenious match which seems natural once you’ve tasted it.

Our “land and sea surprise” tasting menu began with a game consommé, with chives, cabbage, and the unexpected sweetness of a slice of grape. A terrine of leek and mackerel with dollops of mackerel pate, horseradish and beetroot evokes Russia as much as Scotland. Our surprise menu was indeed a surprise, as we aren’t getting entirely the same dishes as the table next to us at this point; no doubt, this was deliberate.

Razor clam next; we had this the last time we were here, too, so I suspect it must be one of the Kitchin’s signature’s; local, and relatively underused elsewhere, ideal for Kitchin to make a mark with. It was mixed with other seafood last time, and very salty; this time, it comes held in place on a celeriac purée and mixed with  pieces of chorizo, which are tiny, but have a large impact on the overall flavour of the dish.

The next dish is the Kitchin’s real signature dish; rolled pig’s head with seared scallop and a salad of pig’s ear. The pig’s head is a roundel of meat with a mixed texture, some gelatinous lumps, and cumin – my favourite taste memory of our previous visit here is of pork belly impregnated with cumin, a glorious match – while the pig’s ear is essentially pork crackling. The scallop was the softest I’d ever had; the texture more of cooked potato than scallop.

Halibut comes with beans, shellfish, fennel, and a very unseasonal basil pesto. Saddle of venison follows, perched on a pumpkin purée, a quince sauce making a delicious dark gravy for the venison, which is red and soft and not remotely liverish.

And so to dessert. What we got was no surprise at all, since we had made a point of asking if we could have what sounded like the most interesting of all the desserts from the main menu, millefeuille; Kitchin graciously complied. While the layered sheets of millefeuille were as good as one would expect (with another crisp making an appearance, an oven-dried slice of apple; is the crisp Kitchin’s concept of the essence of autumn, an attempt to symbolise dried leaves on city pavements?) the star of the dish was not Chantilly cream or chestnut parfait or syrupy apple but the darker-than-beetroot elderberry sorbet, fresh, refreshing, intense.

Coffee is, as ever in restaurants of this class, an excuse for petit fours, the last chance for the restaurant to show a flash of virtuosity before unveiling the bill and abandoning her diners to the streets. These comprised a chewy little pistachio macaroon that hinted at coconut, an almond financier looking for all the world like a scallop with its coral, and a powdery chocolate truffle; what I mistook for orange notes turned out to be discreet, embedded pieces of ginger.

Kitchin has spent the past few years competing with Martin Wishart’s for de facto recognition as Edinburgh’s most highly regarded dining spot. It looks like Kitchin has won, at least for the time being. While Wishart’s is fussier, more French, and more clearly aiming for that second Michelin star, Kitchin unobtrusively maintains a slightly heartier, more Scottish identity. If Kitchin were to aim more clearly down the second star route, they might to choose to offer a palate cleanser to start the meal; but perhaps focusing on seasonal appeal, as Kitchin does, is the most attractive way to maintain a high profile and a distinct identity.