Urban Angel [Forth Street] Edinburgh
The original Urban Angel in Edinburgh's Hanover Street has proven to be an unqualified asset to the city's eating scene, and the second outlet, now open in Forth Street, looks like being another.
This Urban Angel is more modern, airy and slightly smarter than its forerunner, which bears some resemblance to a charmingly antique rabbit's warren. Both Angels manage to pull off that feat of flexibility, which is to say that you can treat them as cafés for snacks, or sit down to a proper three-course meal, or do both simultaneously even, as they have the ability to cope with people arriving at staggered intervals, one wanting coffee, the other looking for a substantial meal.
The overall focus of attention is sensibly on light meals; tapas such as boned quail charred with date salad or lamb kibbeh; salads; starters; sandwiches and sides like warm sweet and sour aubergine with feta, or butternut squash with labna (soft cheese) and pancetta. This line-up encourages experimentation and diversity without producing a scary bill at the end. It's easy to eat healthily here, or be a vegetarian. So it ticks a lot of useful boxes.
Globetrotting in its cooking approach, Urban Angel is thoroughly right-on in its sourcing philosophy.
"We only use the best local, organic, free-range and fairly-traded produce available" it says. It endeavours to be seasonal where possible. These aspirations are laudable and clearly heartfelt, though they do leave room for manoeuvre.
Among a plethora of spelling mistakes on the blackboard (batterd plaice, taglattelle, parmasan), one daily special featured tiger prawns. This is a problematical ingredient, given that 40% of the world's mangroves have been destroyed to create tropical tiger prawn farms. The Environmental Justice Foundation says that there is not one organically certified source for farmed tropical prawns that meets both its environmental and social justice criteria.
And in summer, where's the appropriateness of a salad that features wintry pomegranate, blood orange and pumpkin? Given the apparent level of ingredient awareness, I'd expect asparagus tortilla to feature in May and June during the native and European season, not in August when it will almost certainly be Peruvian. That said, despite Urban Angel’s elastic interpretation of its own credo, you'll find many more thoughtfully sourced and homemade ingredients here than in 99% of restaurants.
When Urban Angel gets it right, its performance can be impressive. Its home-made brown bread with its chewy crust was excellent dipped into olive oil and then a Middle-Eastern-style "dukkah" of grounddown toasted sesame seeds, coriander, cumin and salt. Isle of Skye crab spring rolls, made with ample white claw meat, and Asian glass-type rice noodles, flanked by paper-thin pickled vegetables, were a good deal at £4.90. A plate of addictive batons of crispy polenta with shaved parmesan and rocket was a steal at £2.50.
Main courses were more variable. We loved our nicely spiced, organic lamb tagine with crumbly couscous, but didn't notice until too late that it was meant to come with a salad of harissa, fennel and preserved lemon that had never materialised.
Salads sounded better in anticipation than reality. A salt cod, bean, piquillo pepper and cracked wheat salad had a chilling, straight from the fridge quality, and the fish too slight a flavour apart from its salty overlay. A fistful of irritatingly small unstoned olives made it hard work.
Char-grilled squid salad featuring the same olives had a misjudged balance of ingredients: not enough of the tender squid, too many fried potatoes and chunky halved cherry tomatoes and precious little evidence of the promised roasted garlic and lemon dressing. There's a management issue here. Someone needs to check basics, like making sure that the finished dish tallies with the menu description.
The price structure is erratic: compared to the affordable small savoury options, dessert prices are steep. At £4, a slim slice of raspberry custard tart, without cream, ice cream or any other element, seemed stingy. We loved the velvety chocolate pot with its melting whipped milky mousse on top and a thin pistachio wafer but, at £5.50, it was priced at country house hotel level. Don't get carried away with sweet things without checking the price tag.