Tigerlily, Edinburgh - Restaurants in Edinburgh | s1play.com

Slouching tiger

Review published on 16/08/2007 © Sunday Herald

George Street, and environs, marks the aspirational territory of Edinburgh's middle classes. It is the place to be seen, to shop, to eat, to flaunt your kit - preferably with designer logos blazoned on every buttock and button. It got a leg-up when Harvey Nichols made the mistake of locating in the capital, and set up on its eastern fringe. Then the joyless, concrete windsock that is Multrees Walk with its "See us? We're rich" shops tipped up. After years of playing the prudent twin to stylish, trendsetting Glasgow, Edinburgh is desperately trying to cultivate the well-heeled hipness of London.

This means that when you eat around George Street, you pay over the odds. At best, you can find competently assembled, well-bought food.

At worst you get those brazenly over-priced establishments, charging Gordon Ramsay prices for food that is only a fraction as good. They get away with it because white collar, conservative Edinburgh now embraces uncritically any style-driven catering establishment.

Tigerlily, self-styled as "Edinburgh's hippest boutique hotel", dripping with best bar gongs and awards for decor, jewel in the crown of the hydra-like Montpelier group, is the apotheosis of this trend. The interior is one glam photo shoot for Wallpaper magazine. That apart, it is my idea of hell. The aura of exclusivity starts at the front door. When we arrived, two miked-up, Stringfellows-esque blondes were on patrol, vetting who got in and cultivating the air of an exclusive club. A masterly stroke - the Edinburgh bourgeoisie adores everything private.

No zone of Tigerlily offers respite from pounding pop and the rugby-stadium roar generated by off-duty fund managers shouting.

Cocktails are the thing here, part of the party-popping, hey-we're-having-a-good-time vibe.

Maybe I was just unlucky when I went to the lavatory: the two first cubicles were spattered with vomit. Par for the course, possibly, given the preponderance of empty-stomached, post-work revellers. Diners, as opposed to the rabble at the bar, had the demeanour of people not entirely comfortable with their setting, as if they had been put on a theatre set without a script.

The menu at Tigerlily is dogged in its pursuit of gimmickry (skewers, fondues, rice paper) and dated in the way that it strives to tick all the "trendy" boxes that defined provincial brasseries, circa 2000; balsamic vinegar, pak choi, rocket, "wok-fried" vegetables et al. And it's more dire on the plate than on paper. Our platter of starters spanned the pedestrian (rocket, parmesan, balsamic vinegar), the tasteless (skewered prawns), the weird (sour mashed potato rounds said to be crab cakes), the clumsily basic (lukewarm mushrooms and red pepper with blue cheese melted over) and the inedible ("peppered" beef skewers, free from seasoning, of rank-smelling beef that was almost impossible to cut, let alone chew).

As for the main courses, pork belly came in tramline slices of unrendered fat and flesh leathery enough to loosen fillings, while duck breast, unevenly fried, not adequately rested, made a rousing advert for vegetarianism. It was removed from our bill without a murmur and with the reassurance that it was not typical. I wish I could believe that.

By way of peripherals, it was as if a child had been let loose in Ken Hom's kitchen. Sour coconut rice bore an uncanny resemblance to regurgitated baby milk. A tangle of noodles came in a saccharin soup. Mango salsa managed to taste like pickled onions from a chip shop. Vegetable chips smelled like old oil.

Desserts, for the most part, are a teenage bulimic's fantasy with chocolate and marshmallow in abundance. White chocolate, pecan and caramel cheesecake tasted like a pile of salted Philadelphia cheese on a standard biscuit base. Zigzags of caramel and one lonely pecan half couldn't transform it into anything more accomplished. The only vaguely reasonable thing we had to eat was a lemon tart, albeit in an amateurishly thick crust.

And yet, Tigerlily is demonstrably successful, to the point of turning people away. All I can say is if this is what Edinburgh truly wants, then it gets what it deserves.