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Times
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
11 of the best restaurants in Edinburgh
Once upon a time, Scotland was famous for being the country that exported its finest ingredients abroad while its inhabitants subsisted on a diet of deep-fried Mars bars washed down with Irn-Bru. Not any longer. Scottish chefs are raiding a natural larder of arguably the world's best fish, seafood and wild game and transforming it into a cuisine that is both distinctly Caledonian and creatively contemporary. Nowhere is this showcased more exuberantly than in the Scottish capital, named as the UK's most exciting food destination in 2025 by the Good Food Guide. True, the city's most ambitious chefs are perhaps overly fond of fine dining and tasting menus — Edinburgh has more Michelin stars than any other city in Scotland — but each month seems to bring an ever-more exciting choice of casual options too. And if you want to escape the crowds, neighbourhood-focused food scenes in Leith, Stockbridge and Marchmont offer an alternative to the big names in the city centre's Old Town and New Town. This article contains affiliate links, which may earn us revenue £££ | BOOK AHEAD | Best for seafood-leaning fine dining Stuart Ralston already had three critically acclaimed Edinburgh restaurants to his name — Aizle, Noto and Tipo — when he opened Lyla in autumn 2023. This 28-seat dining room has cemented his reputation as the city's foremost chef and restaurateur, with the Michelin star to prove it. Ten-course suppers of the freshest Scottish fish begin over canapés in an upstairs drawing room where you can see the raw produce (fish and the meat used in one of the courses) in the dry-ageing rooms; the finished product might include a luxurious plate of N25 caviar with wild bream, black radish and sea buckthorn. It sounds super formal, but friendly staff ensure the whole experience feels relaxed, while the location in a Georgian house with views over the Edinburgh skyline to the Firth of Forth sets the scene. £ | BOOK AHEAD | BAR | Best for a banging brunch from a star chef A venue that has a hash brown as its signature dish is worth a morning of anyone's time but there's more to this Leith café-cum-bar than posh potatoes. Owner Roberta Hall-McCarron (above) is one of Edinburgh's most talented chefs, having represented Scotland in the Great British Menu, where she reached the finals and won the fish course. Ardfern finds her in more casual mode compared with her special-occasion restaurant The Little Chartroom next door, but still with the same focus on ace ingredients: even the sausages and bacon in the fry-up are homemade. That hash brown comes as a pair of crunchy cuboids piled with pecorino cheese and dolloped with roast onion ketchup, and you can come back and have it again on the concise evening menu too. ££ | Best for seasonal Scottish ingredients The grand proportions of bank conversions always seem to make light and airy dining rooms but the cooking at this restaurant close to Haymarket railway station would merit attention even if the bistro-style setting were not so convivial. Many Edinburgh chefs champion Scottish ingredients but few do it as convincingly as those at the Palmerston, where whole animals are butchered in-house and relationships with farmers and fishermen are cherished. The Palmerston is also that rare thing in Edinburgh: a destination restaurant where one can have three heartily portioned courses instead of ten tiny ones. The weekday set lunch, meanwhile, is the stuff of local legend, sending out two or three courses for £21 and £24 respectively. Here earlier in the day? The bakery makes dreamy breakfast pastries to eat in or take away. ££ | BOOK AHEAD | BAR | Best for small-plate suppers and late-night libations Small is beautiful at Skua, where a snappy menu of a dozen seasonal small plates is cooked up in a tiny kitchen. The restaurant might be short on space but not on ambition, with each perfectly balanced dish delivering a wallop of big, bold flavour — as you would expect from a place owned by hotshot chef Tomás Gormley, who also has casual fine-diner Cardinal nearby. Try his fried chicken with fermented peach hot sauce and follow with doughnuts erupting with smoked cheese and guanciale (cured pork cheek). The kitchen closes at 10pm but the bar mixes nightcaps such as the crème brûlée (a nuanced mix of oloroso sherry and white chocolate) for a couple of hours after. Who needs pudding? Walk-in space is limited, so best to book ahead. ££ | BOOK AHEAD | Best for candlelit meals à deux If all the new Nordic and Scandi-chic restraint that's emblematic of Edinburgh's contemporary dining scene begins to pale, embrace your inner maximalist and sense of gothic romance at this gloriously OTT restaurant with sumptuous suites at the summit of the Royal Mile. True, the location by the gates of Edinburgh Castle makes the Witchery catnip for tourists, but the 16th-century dining room provides eye-popping fireworks to equal the city's famous Tattoo, from tapestries and oak panelling to flames flickering in tall brass candlesticks. The cooking, thankfully, is simpler than the surroundings and at its best in Scottish ingredients handled with a light touch — a tartare of aged Scotch beef rather than haggis with pineapple chutney, say. Accompaniments such as duck fat crumpets will make you grateful that the walk home is downhill — if you're not bedding down in one of the opulent rooms upstairs, that • Read our full guide to Scotland• Best hotels in Edinburgh ££ | Best for plant-forward modern classics Janet Henderson opened her trailblazing New Town address in 1962; by the time it closed during the pandemic, it was the UK's longest-established vegetarian restaurant. Her grandson Barrie revived the family name one year later in new digs on the other side of town, but this is no exercise in nostalgia: Henderson junior has an MBA in hospitality and has updated the menus for 21st-century tastes in clean-lined, contemporary surrounds. So while there are still signatures like lentil lasagne and vegan haggis, the old-time classics have been joined by jackfruit tostada and miso aubergine. Organic ingredients are used wherever possible, and lots of the menu is either vegan or has the option to be. £ | Best for next-level sandwiches 'Big hot sandwiches' (their words) of deep-filled focaccia are the house speciality at Alby's, ranging from the relatively healthy — pan-fried mackerel with dill aïoli and matchstick chips, say — to the anything but. Still, it's hard to feel guilty about eating a sweet-and-sour chicken sandwich when the battered chook slathered in sesame and Chiu Chow chilli mayo tastes so damn good, plus the doorstop sarnies clock in around the £13 mark, which feels good value when you consider the scale. Veggie alternatives such as fried courgette with garlicky skordalia dip are similarly sledgehammer-subtle on the flavour front. In the unlikely event you're still hungry, sides like corn ribs with chimichurri won't inflict too much damage on the modest bill. There's another equally cheerful Alby's in Southside, but only the Leith original takes bookings. ££ | BOOK AHEAD | BAR | Best for natural wines and ingredients-led simplicity It's a game of two halves at Montrose, the Radford family's follow-up to their smash-hit Timberyard in the Old Town. Upstairs is closer in spirit to its Michelin-starred sibling, where diners at seven white-clothed tables are treated to a four-course menu showcasing wild and wonderful Scottish ingredients prepared with the sort of simplicity that lets the natural flavour do the talking: aged mallard with morels, wild garlic, grains and amontillado sherry, say. There are vegan and vegetarian menus, too. Downstairs, though, is more fun, a wine bar where on-trend small plates such as Korean fried quail with kimchi and pickled turnip are matched to a well-curated drinks list featuring not only low-intervention wines but also fermented soft drinks like kombucha. £££ | BOOK AHEAD | Best for Edinburgh's most intriguing tasting menu In a city not short on myths and legends, American chef Rodney Wages has his own compelling story to tell. So smitten was he by the Scottish capital when he visited on holiday that he closed his Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco, re-located his family to Edinburgh and opened a new version in a Georgian townhouse in Stockbridge, complete with bold Victor Reyes artworks transported from California. The gamble paid off: Michelin awarded Avery a star nine months after opening. The tasting menu is scrawled in handwritten block capitals with terse descriptions on stiff parchment paper; 'haggis' turns out to be the offal of a barley-fed pigeon served with whisky sauce and cherries. There is, of course, Californian wine, but just as much of a focus on saké, champagne and non-alcoholic cocktails. ££ | BOOK AHEAD | BAR | Best for family-friendly cheffy thrills Even if you didn't know that this gastropub was owned by celebrity chef Tom Kitchin, the rustic-chic decor and homemade vegetable chips on each table would be the first signs that this is not two pints of lager and a packet of crisps territory. The chefs here follow the same nature-to-plate ethos as the Michelin-starred The Kitchin in Leith. For grown-ups that means classic pub grub based on superior ingredients from fish and steak pies to Highland wagyu burgers, Islay oysters and Orkney scallops. Children get their own 'scallies' menu with sausage and mash and macaroni cheese, finishing with build-you-own sundaes and the whole lot washed down with milkshakes. If the play area doesn't do the trick, burn off any excess energy with a stroll around the nearby Royal Botanic Garden. ££ | Best for lip-smacking sushi Glasgow may have the more notable reputation for the strength of its Indian and Chinese dining scene, but when it comes to Japanese, Edinburgh wins hands down. The city's sushi cognoscenti reckon the raw fish is better sourced and more expertly sliced at this serene restaurant in the shadow of the castle than at anywhere else in the Scottish capital. Two chefs work in an open kitchen preparing a menu split into five sections: sushi, tempura, teppan, classics and specials; if the choice feels overwhelming, simply order one dish from each. Not everything is raw, the likes of tuna and scallop have their flavour amplified by a quick flash on the grill; and not everything is fishy, arguably the best thing of all is the grilled aubergine flecked with sweet miso sauce. • Discover our full guide to the UK• Best UK pubs with rooms• Best Michelin-starred restaurants with rooms
Boston Globe
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Maria Tipo, lyrical pianist and Scarlatti interpreter, dies at 94
Like Clementi, Ms. Tipo was overlooked at times by the public, especially in the United States. Although she crisscrossed the country in the 1950s, playing more than 300 concerts in an era when the vast majority of her fellow pianists were men, she later stayed away for three decades, returning to Italy to teach and start a family. By the time she resumed touring in the United States in the early 1990s, New York magazine was calling her 'the world's best-kept musical secret.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Writing for the magazine in 1993, journalist Charles Michener described her piano playing as 'musical storytelling of the highest order,' offering special praise for her recordings of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas. 'Here was a rhythmic vitality that swept away all cobwebs of antiquity,' he wrote, 'and gave every phrase a dancing life.' Advertisement Ms. Tipo was highly regarded by colleagues such as Martha Argerich, one of the world's leading classical pianists, who paused during a concert in Turin, Italy, on Tuesday to dedicate a Robert Schumann piece in her honor. In remarks that were captured on social media, she called Ms. Tipo 'an extraordinary inspiration for her musicality, her flair, and her fantastic pianism,' adding that Ms. Tipo, who taught at conservatories in Italy and Switzerland, 'was also an extraordinary pedagogue.' 'Her sound was glorious,' pianist Nelson Goerner, who studied with Ms. Tipo in Geneva, said in a phone interview. 'She had the most beautiful cantabile that you can imagine a piano can produce. She was, to me, a very complete, very honest artist. She played with great flashes of imagination but with thoughtful respect for the scores.' Advertisement Ms. Tipo was only 17 when she rose to prominence in 1949, winning the top piano prize at the Geneva International Music Competition. Three years later, she came in third place at another top music contest, the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. One of the jurors, revered pianist Arthur Rubinstein, recommended her to his manager, impresario Sol Hurok, who brought Ms. Tipo to the United States, arranging for her New York City debut at the Town Hall in 1955. 'Whatever she touched came out with confidence and competence,' New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote in a review, highlighting her 'rhythm and clarity' and 'the verve of her playing.' At age 24, in 1956, Ms. Tipo released her debut album, a record of 12 Scarlatti sonatas she said she recorded in four hours. Released by the Vox label, the album became a favorite among critics and collectors — it was reissued on CD decades later — and brought her comparisons to pianist Vladimir Horowitz, whose earlier performances of the sonatas had helped revive interest in the Italian composer. Three decades later, Ms. Tipo recorded the Goldberg Variations for EMI, tackling a keyboard classic that had gained fresh recognition through the playing of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. Admirers, including music critic Richard Dyer of The Boston Globe, praised the emotional intensity and lyricism of her approach, although others questioned whether her grand gestures and idiosyncratic tempo changes were needed. Ms. Tipo was always one to go her own way. Asked about the different ways she and Horowitz approached Scarlatti, she replied bluntly: 'He was Horowitz. I am from Naples.' Advertisement 'Those who have had anything to do with Miss Tipo know how decisive she is,' Schonberg, the Times critic, wrote in 1991, on the eve of the pianist's first New York solo recital in 32 years. 'She is tall, imposing, genial, prone to laughter, but she can also be stubborn. When she makes up her mind, her chin juts forward, steel comes into her eyes, and she is immovable. Period. Subject closed.' The daughter of a mathematician and a pianist, Maria Luisa Tipo was born in Naples on Dec. 23, 1931. She began playing the piano as a young girl, studying under her mother, a former pupil of pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni, before training under Alfredo Casella and Guido Agosti. 'I never heard recordings. My recordings were my mother,' Ms. Tipo said of her childhood. 'She played; I listened.' Around the time she returned to Italy in the 1960s, worn down by the isolation of her life as a touring pianist, Ms. Tipo married Alvaro Company, a guitarist and composer, and had a daughter. Their marriage fractured, ending in divorce, as Ms. Tipo sought to juggle work and family amid expectations that she look after the home. 'It was very hard to be artist, mother, and wife,' she told New York magazine. 'When I returned home from an engagement, I had to deal with everything — the house, the students, the bambina . The man knows nothing about that!' Ms. Tipo's second marriage, to pianist Alessandro Specchi, also ended in divorce. She leaves her daughter, Alina Company, who became a violinist and, like Ms. Tipo, a teacher at the Fiesole School of Music. Advertisement Ms. Tipo said she found a new form of fulfillment as a teacher, working with piano students including Fabio Bidini, Frank Lévy, Pietro De Maria, Giovanni Nesi, and Andrea Lucchesini. Goerner said Ms. Tipo had an almost maternal affection for her pupils. As Ms. Tipo saw it, there was a direct link between a person's inner life and their musical abilities. She hoped to foster both, explaining to New York magazine, 'The more rich you are inside, the better the music.'
