Rutland Hotel Restaurant, Edinburgh - Restaurants in Edinburgh | s1play.com

Out of the rut

Review published on 26/05/2009 © Sunday Herald

I have always taken Edinburgh’s Rutland Hotel to be a poor relation to the swanky Caledonian Hotel, that imposing Princes Street landmark.

I had it down as a noisy pub operation with a jobsworth restaurant and dowdy hotel above. I now realise that the Rutland has reinvented itself as a boutique hotel, aspiring “serious” restaurant, and all that.

My eyes were positively standing out on stalks when I walked into the restaurant, a design statement if ever there was one, all dramatic black, white and crimson glittering with mirrored rooms-within-rooms, lowered red lacquered ceilings and see-through black fringed curtains that create tantalising partitions.

It’s a bit bordello, a bit casino, a bit like a funfair hall of mirrors. In more architecturally ordinary venues, this could look tacky, but the first-floor dining room at the Rutland is fabulous. The round curve of the exterior wall has a series of well-proportioned windows that are almost floor-to-ceiling. They flood the room with light and give a 45-degree angle of the striking views for which the capital is so famous: up to Castle Rock; east along Princes Street to Calton Hill; north over the west side of Charlotte Square and West Register House, or down Queensferry Street to the Dean Bridge.

For the time being, the usual traffic hubbub outside has been silenced by excavations for the city’s forthcoming tram system, so you can see how, if pedestrianised, this famous corner could be turned into a grand piazza along continental European lines.

These vistas are stunning. People stump up a fortune for overpriced, bad food in venues the world over just to have such a privileged window on a city. Yet the Rutland’s restaurant was much better (if patchy) than I had dared to hope.

One dish showed the potential of the kitchen. It was the best fish dish I have had so far this year: a pearly-fresh whole lemon sole on the bone, served in a classic, nutty browned butter with brown shrimp, lemon, capers and parsley.

It wasn’t just that the fish was impeccably cooked - it was also that the dish stacked up to make an intelligent, balanced whole, pairing the sole with the spring delights of buttered salsify and marsh samphire, and what looked like Red Duke of York potatoes, bearing all the hallmarks of being supplied by the redoubtable Carroll’s, whose Berwickshire crop of rarer varieties exposes the spuds we generally eat as the nonentities they are.

The other main course was a big hit too, a summery treatment of rump of lamb, confidently seasoned and grilled, then served on a salad of new peas, broad beans, Carroll’s floury Salad Blue potatoes and young goat’s cheese with a yoghurt dressing perfumed with fresh mint.

Our desserts weren’t half bad either. I had envisaged the rhubarb tart coming in shortcrust but it came on a disc of flaky pastry, rather like a tarte tatin, which was fine, but this presentation didn’t leave much room for the fruit itself. That said, its accompanying bitter-sweet pomegranate syrup and first-rate rhubarb and honeycomb ice-cream made the dessert more multi-layered than a simple fruit tart.

A surprisingly fragrant strawberry sherbet sorbet (strawberry ices usually taste of zilch) added another dimension to a lemon meringue pie sporting a sharp tart lemon curd filling and suitably friable pastry. The only let-down here was the meringue, which was of the virginal white, dry and dusty sort. I like them golden on top and softly squidgy inside.

Where the Rutland disappointed was its starters. The batter was separating from salt and pepper tempura squid and the cephalopod was oddly tasteless. A heavy fried spring roll jacket swamped a dull filling of mushy crab, while its sweet and sour salad of matchstick vegetables was drowned in soy sauce. Neither starter seemed on the same level in concept or execution as the main courses.

Possibly the Rutland is hedging its bets, blurring the casual/fine dining distinction to pull people in. But someone in this kitchen can cook well and understands the seasonal/local food agenda. I’d say, iron out the blips in performance, then let him or her get on with it.