The Tower Restaurant, Edinburgh - Restaurants in Edinburgh | s1play.com

The Tower Museum of Scotland

Review published on 16/02/2005 © Sunday Herald

The economics of running a restaurant are something we don't appreciate when we tut and say, "Imagine charging £18 for a sirloin steak - I could buy that for £2!" That £18 is underwriting everything from floral decorations and the laundry bill through to staff wages.

But even allowing for ambitious margins, I found various calculations running through my head in the swanky Tower in Edinburgh when I looked at my starter, a 'beef carpaccio, steak tartare, olive crostini', price £11.

It wasn't the cost that shook me especially - only the very finest, prime cuts of beef lend themselves to being eaten raw so you might expect this to be a pricey item - but the quantity. I didn't have scales with me, but I would be surprised if there was more than 80 grams of meat on the plate.

For those who struggle with metric measures, think in terms of a tablespoon of steak tartare and about five shavings of carpaccio with the dimensions of a miniature playing card. The 'crostini' (plural) was actually one solitary 'crostino' (singular). If it contained olives, then I missed them. I couldn't help thinking of Italy where a carpaccio would cover the plate, or France, where the tartare would be substantial in proportions with an egg yolk and aromatics to stir in.

I'd like to tell you that this starter merited its price tag, but it didn't. The plate had either been warmed or was still so blisteringly hot from the dishwasher that it had more or less cooked the carpaccio - a serious error. It was impossible to assess the quality of beef in the steak tartare because it was over-loaded with what tasted like Worcestershire sauce. The vinegar killed any natural beef flavour like a sledgehammer and slaughtered even a concentrated, powerful red wine from the Salento.

The impression was of overpriced, middling-to-average food. When you have a really great meal, the pain of the expense soon wears off. But this was the kind of place where it continues to rankle.

The single best thing we ate was a nicely cooked, obligingly tender piece of venison saddle, complemented by soft honey-glazed root vegetables and a contrasting tart cranberry compote. It was a jolly fine dish, but then so it should have been at £24. But it was let down by an almost stale-tasting fondant potato, still slightly raw at one extremity.

A pricey game terrine (£8.50 as a starter) lacked any flair whatsoever, consisting of a series of dry breasts of game bird wrapped in floppy fat ham. It lacked some fatter flesh or a gelatinous element to render it succulent. Some seasoning would have helped too. Its sauce Gribiche was dry, crying out to be slackened up with some oil. You needed the accompanying blob of unsubtle, vinegary Arran mustard to help the terrine down.

Vegetarians - being a much abused minority - might have been thrilled by a squash and macadamia tart, even at £16. Well, macadamia nuts are expensive.

The pastry was crisp. It was filled with confit tomatoes, a surprisingly slight amount of roasted squash and an awful lot of nuts, panfried I reckon. But this was one of those dishes that consisted of a number of different elements that just didn't gel into one coherent, satisfying meal.

Elsewhere on the vegetable front, the kitchen is to be applauded for its seasonal offerings such as honey-roast parsnips and savoy cabbage, shallots and bacon mixed with baby potatoes.

Pudding-wise, a white chocolate pistachio shortbread trifle made a tempting if heavyweight dessert. The 'chilled raspberry and ginger soup, set vanilla custard' sounded tantalising. What I got was actually a pannacotta. Not only is pannacotta not a custard since it doesn't contain eggs, but this one had far too much gelatine - the usual misunderstood Scottish travesty of a simple Italian dish. Why can't we get this one right?

© Sunday Herald