Elemental, my dears: Edinbugh Food Studio restaurant review

The word ‘elemental’ came to mind immediately on tasting the new menu at Edinburgh Food Studio (EFS) earlier this month to celebrate the launch of Ben Reade and Sashana Souza Zanella’s restaurant under newly-headhunted head chef James Murray.

The cooking ethos here is based on the research work ongoing at EFS: paring back to the authentic flavours of traditional or neglected Scottish heritage ingredients using both ancient and sustainable modern techniques (trust I’ve got that right!). I have to say the eight-course £50 tasting menu, plus three amazing amuse-bouches, delivered flavours and textures I’d never experienced before. I mean that in a good way. It was memorable and a credit to the time and care put in to every element by the team.

I won’t describe every course, but a tiny rare Shetland hogget kidney, deep-fried in heritage grain crumb, and paired with a cut of 12-year old Luing cow sirloin served blackened on the outside and cerise pink inside, was a stand-out case in point. Rarely has the nose been put into such sublime collision with the tongue: gamey, minerally, offaly, salty, soft and crispy all at once, the unadulterated sensory hit evoked the kitchen of an 18th century Highland croft. so much so that I completely forgot to take a photo. (Continues...)

Top: Kent cucumbers with salt cod brandade. Above: Foraged girolles in a meadowsweet and brown butter broth, paired with a white Rioja, was deceptively simple but richly nuanced with flavour.

The visual simplicity of a bowl of braised new season girolles, foraged by Gary Goldie and served in a meadowsweet and brown butter broth, was deceptive: paired with a white Rioja Vina Gravonia the sweet, earthy flavours of the wild mushrooms sang.  The biggest Barra cockles were presented with a Shetland turbot fillet with sea aster, and a broth made with the trim of precious Orkney scallops was as delicately balanced as it could be to bring out the natural sweetness of the prized shellfish.

Local berries were prepared three different ways in three beautifully different dishes: a kombucha of strawberries with rapeseed and black pepper, a granite of East Lothian blackcurrants with yoghurt and oats; and an almond and honey brown butter cake cracker with raspberries, all served with a Swedish eiswein Iscider 2014, Umea. (Continues...)

Orkney scallops were served with wild gooseberries and dehydrated purslane flowers.

I liked the way Ben and Sashana were waiting the tables (two long benches seating around 12 each), and how meats were paired with whites (the amuse-bouches of hogget kidney and Luing, Kent cucumber with cod brandade and Isle of Wight tomatoes with Provencal apricot were served with a Cremant Klur from Alsace, for example) and fish and chicken with reds; mixing it up intelligently is part of what they do here.

Ben and Sashana crowd-funded EFS three years ago, and have been running a successful international events programme in addition to ongoing food research. So the restaurant – situated within their original research hub at Dalkeith Road - seems a natural development as the work they do will feed into the menus. In addition to the £50 evening Tasting Menu, there’s a daily-changing a la carte lunch, and weekend brunch.

No wonder Falkirk-born James Murray, who worked at Raymond Blanc's two-Michelin starred Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxford, and was head chef at the Michelin-starred Nur in Hong Kong before joining Lyle’s in Shoreditch under James Lowe, says he is galvanised by his new job – for which Ben headhunted him. “Reacting to what our fabulous team of suppliers can give us each day keeps us all on our toes, and means the creative juices keep on flowing,” he says.

* See previous post to read more about the Edinburgh Food Studio.

Look at the size of that Barra cockle - teamed here with Shetland turbot and sea aster in an elderflower butter!

Simply special: Linda Dick chicken with grilled onion and redcurrant.

Edinburgh Food Studio: Looking to the past to feed the future

An interesting segue from the founding ethos of Ben Reade’s Edinburgh Food Studio (EFS), Scotland’s first international food research hub - and newly-launched restaurant - is the part it could play in the current debate around UK food security, self-sufficiency, and the issue of stockpiling. The fragility of our food chain has been exposed not only by the effects of the recent heatwave on livestock, veg and dairy farming, but also by the potential consquences of a no-deal Brexit.

Britain imports over 50% of the food it consumes, most of that from the EU. If we crash out with no trade deals in place we could see a sharp reduction in foods imported from the EU, and the end - temporary or permanent – of much-loved, freely-available ingredients such as olive oil, lemons, pasta and so on. If we’re forced to look closer to home for our food – new trade deals with the US notwithstanding – the national diet could, it's feared, be limited to tinned and preserved items supplemented with smaller ranges of locally sourced fresh foods in a scenario reminiscent of the postwar 1950s.

This is where I reckon the EFS and its research work comes in.

I first met Edinburgh-born Reade in 2012 in Copenhagen, while he was head of culinary research and development at the Nordic Food Lab, part of “gastronomic entrepreneur” Rene Redzepi’s world-famous Noma restaurant in Copenhagen. Reade was studying the origins - as well as the potential – of indigenous regional foods. Indeed, NFL’s aim was not only to revive Scandinavia’s food heritage. Another powerful motivator was food security. Finding inexpensive ways to create flavours that are not indigenous – such as citrus fruit, sugar and salt – meant that NFL was poised to produce a valuable blueprint for other countries to follow. Interestingly, it is part-funded by the Danish government.

Reade’s big thing was - and still is - fermentation and what he called the “expression of microbial terroir”. In Copenhagen I tasted a “fish” sauce he’d made from grasshoppers, wood larvae and barley; a vinegar-type dressing made with fermented carrot juice; and a sweet, sticky cake made with barley injected with Aspergillus oryzae, or koji. At the time he told me Scotland, too, could be looking at its own edible biogeography in a similarly analytical way as Denmark, enabling the discovery and rediscovery of new and forgotten ingredients, partly in order to safeguard us from (imported) shortages in the future.

And so it came to pass that Reade and his then partner (now wife) Sashana Souza Zanella returned to Edinburgh and initially spent time travelling around the country to uncover forgotten foods, meet micro-food producers and so begin their research archive. They crowdfunded the Edinburgh Food Studio three years ago with the aim of creating an international research and education hub that would encourage the study of the traditional foods, cooking techniques and recipes of Scotland - as well as their potential and overlap with other cuisines - while sloughing off the hackneyed image of the Scottish diet. (Continues...)

At EFS the pair, who met while students at the School of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenza, Italy, have hosted a variety of interns, guest chefs, writers and historians from around the world, building a valuable archive of information that is a free resource for others. Guests include Ana Ros of Hisa Franko restaurant in Slovenia, Susu Laukkonen of Ora in Helsinki, and Swedish butter maker Patrik Johansson. Orkney seal recipes have been uncovered, and painstaking work has been ongoing to extract a sensory vocabulary around Shetland hogget. Oh, and they’ve started a wholesale bread bakery in Leith, milling their own organic flour from Mungoswells in East Lothian.

The couple are now further developing with the launch of a 25-cover restaurant at the EFS, and have lured James Murray from Lyle’s in Shoreditch as head chef. Murray, from Falkirk, was formerly head chef at the Michelin-starred Nur in Hong Kong and has also worked with Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire. He’ll be serving coffees, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and brunch on Sundays from August 2. (Continues...)

James, above right, who joined EFS in mid-July, says Ben and Sashana have already introduced him to some “phenomenal” local suppliers. Working with them on a day-to-day basis means his menus will be ever-changing according to what’s available. Thinking on his feet and adapting to the natural environment like this is elemental to the ethos of EFS and is thrilling, he says. He is understandably proud that he can not tell me what the menu would be for the opening dinner just days following our meeting.

When I meet Ben and James at EFS, there’s a new Dry Ager cabinet in which hang two Native Shetland PDO hoggets from artisan producer Richard Briggs of Weisdale; a rump of 12 year old organic Luing beef from Peelham Farm in Berwickshire that’s been hanging here for 10 weeks; and two plump free-range chickens from Linda Dick in Peebles.  

From a high shelf above the Pass Ben pulls down a terracotta jar full of salted North Sea herrings (pictured top) which won’t be ready for eating until next year but are a fine example of the 19th century Scots way of preserving food also widely practised in the Mediterranean. “I got the recipe from a 94 year old fishwife from Newhaven, and am very excited to see how they turn out,” he says. “We also want to dry-age other species of Scottish fish, as the Japanese do. It’s not that different from what the ancient Scots did.”

In the cool, dark cellar underneath the restaurant, he shows me his collection of chestnut, oak, cherry and juniper casks from Modena in which Scottish apple juice infusions are slow-fermenting to become a range of Balsamic-style vinegars. They have been maturing for 12 years, starting out in Ben’s parents’ Edinburgh house before transferring here. And there’s a delicious fermented raspberry wine, made according to an ancient Scottish recipe. (Continues...)

(Top) Ben with his prized collection of chestnut, oak, cherry and juniper casks from Modena, in which he's maturing Scottish apple juice for Balsamic-style vinegars. Above: Fermented raspberry wine from an ancient Scots recipe, and right, Shetland hogget, Luing beef and organic chickens in the Dry Ager.

“Traditional Scottish cooking was about survival. People didn’t have time to look into things that were always there, but here at EFS we have the luxury of time to look into the past to re-interpret it for the future,” he says. “Man is, always has been, a product of his environment. Scots cuisine has always influenced, and been influenced by, Europe and the rest of the world.”

So EFS could help teach us how to protect against future food shortages – though we shouldn’t confuse preservation with protectionism.

Ben reminds me that During World War II Mussolini tried to ban the consumption of pasta in Italy because the wheat most of it was made from was imported from Ukraine and Canada. Italy lost a lot of trading partners as a result.

“If modern right-wing policies help us focus on increased domestic food production and the cutting of food miles, then they're not entirely a bad thing,” he says.

* Words and photos ©CateDevine

Edinburgh Food Studio founders Ben Reade and Sashana Souza Zanella in 2015.

Roberta Hall joins a growing brigade of female head chefs

Her mentor Tom Kitchin once said in an interview that "she's got more balls than the rest of them put together". Now his former protegee Roberta Hall, who for three years worked as chef de partie at The Kitchin before becoming head chef at Castle Terrace under Dominic Jack, is to open her own 18-cover restaurant in Leith to be named The Little Chartroom. She will run the kitchen, while Shaun McCarron, formerly restaurant manager at Castle Terrace, will do front-of-house. 

Food will be simple and seasonal, served at lunch and dinner from Wednesday to Sunday, with brunch at the weekend. Chef Hall's classical French training at the Kitchin Group and elsewhere promises to take it to a level above standard bistro fare.

Let's wish them both well. And here's to more women having the guts - and the goodwill - to go it alone.

Chef's the one on the right ....

“The wine scene in Glasgow is behind that of other cities.”

I was really interested to meet Severine Sloboda (above), the first-ever sommelier to be appointed by The Gannet, one of Glasgow’s most progressive independent restaurants. She is also Glasgow’s only female sommelier (sommelière?). The appointment is significant for other reasons too, one being that there are only two other restaurants in the city to have such a person on staff. I find that astonishing.

Severine, a Parisienne who trained with the top names in Paris and London, hosts The Gannet’s new series of wine dinners. She works closely with co-chef-patrons Ivan Stein and Peter McKenna and wine suppliers Alexander Wines of Glasgow, L'Art du Vin of Dunfermline and De Burgh Wine Merchants of Dalkeith.

I attended the February wine dinner, where the food was paired with carefully-chosen - and sometimes surprising - Southern Hemisphere wines. Of the exceptional six-course “journey” my favourite was Shetland squid with ink puree, confit wing and chicken juices, paired with a Pinot Gris from Snapper Rock, Marlborough, New Zealand 2016. Although the Scrabster-landed cod, onion, herb puree and mussel emulsion paired with a Chardonnay from Jordan Wine Estate, Stellenbosch, South Africa 2015 almost pipped it to the post. Also on the menu was Borders lamb loin with cabbage-wrapped shoulder, white bean and hasselback potato and cumin sauce, matched with a stunning Chilean single vineyard 2016 Carmenere. We started the evening with a delicious sparkling vintage – vintage – Stellenbosch Simonsig Kaapse Vonkel brut 2015.

Judging by Severine’s engaging and informative descriptions, it was clear much expert knowledge had gone into the wine choices.

But why do so few Glasgow restaurants see the need for a wine expert, as opposed to a wine waiter? After all, Edinburgh has many more.

Severine tells me she found it extremely difficult to find a professional sommelier job when she first came to Glasgow from London. That, surely, is an embarrassment for the city which prides itself as having one of the most progressive independent restaurant scenes in the UK (though it hasn’t had a Michelin Star since Gordon Ramsay pulled the plug on the one-starred Amaryllis at One Devonshire Gardens in 2003).

Major respect, then, to The Gannet for landing Ms Sloboda, a true professional in her field – and for upping the ante.

Her mother has run the Nicolas wine shop in Paris’s upmarket 7th arrondissement near the Champs Elysees since Severine was 10 years old. She says she was “submerged” (I assume not literally) in wine from that young age, and went on to train at the Institut du Vin du Savour Club under Georges Lepre, head sommelier at the Ritz. Her first job as head sommelier was at Adam Byatt's Trinity restaurant in Clapham, London.  In 2008 she became head sommelier at Angelus near Marble Arch, founded by chef-patron Thierry Tomasin, himself former head sommelier at Le Gavroche. She came to Glasgow directly from London, where latterly she had been with upscale eateries Corrigan’s Mayfair, and Buddha-Bar in Knightsbridge.

“I was surprised to fine the wine scene is Glasgow is not quite there yet,” she said, adding: “Though from what I learn from our diners, I am sure that Glasgow is keen to drink better.” (Continues after photo ...)

Severine Sloboda at the bar (photo ©CateDevine)

She reckons that is already changing, as food flavours become ever more nuanced and sophisticated. “It is incomprehensible to me that people are so keen to develop their palates with ever more sophisticated dishes, and menus that declare the provenance of almost every ingredient and supplier, yet they don’t have anyone to properly explain the subtleties of the wine they are drinking with it.

“That said, I do notice that our diners are very keen on world wines, and want to learn more.”

I can’t avoid the burning question of whether appointing its first sommelier is a move to encourage the Michelin Guide inspectors to give The Gannet a star (it already has a Bib Gourmand). But Peter McKenna, who co-founded The Gannet with fellow chef Ivan Stein in 2013, dismisses my suggestion thus:

“That is not anything that enters our psyche. We simply wanted to give customers a rounded experience.

“We shied away from appointing a sommelier for the first few years, but then we thought, ‘let’s just do it’. It has set us apart, and the feedback has been really phenomenal.

“We introduced our wine dinner series with Severine because our diners are as passionate about wine as they are about food.”

The restaurant is now able to offer any of its wines by the glass thanks to Coravin, a preservation device which allows the pouring of a single glass from a bottle without having to remove the cork. A 125ml glass of Gevrey Chambertin 2015 will set you back around £17.40.

So welcome, Severine, and let’s toast the raising of Glasgow’s gastronomic reputation.

·        For details of The Gannet’s monthly wine dinner series, visit thegannetgla.com or ring 0141-204 2081.  

No improvement in the Scottish diet - but there's appetite for change

Disappointed - but from the evidence all around us, hardly surprised - to learn that Scotland’s notoriously poor diet hasn’t improved in the last 17 years, while adult and child obesity and diet-related illnesses have reached record levels.

High-fat, salt and sugar-based foods are responsible for two-thirds of adults being either overweight or obese, leading to increased levels of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and many forms of cancer, while one in three children living in Scotland remain overweight or obese despite the Scottish government’s dietary goals aimed at encouraging healthier eating. Poor diet was a contributory factor in 6697 Scottish deaths from coronary heart disease in 2016, and 2181 deaths from stroke.

Over 30% of Primary One schoolchildren had obvious dental decay in 2016, and 29% of the adult population have high blood pressure.

Absence from work due to diet-related ill-health means that the obesity crisis is now an economic, as well as a national health, issue.

At the launch in Glasgow today [Monday February 26] of its Situation Report entitled The Scottish Diet: It Needs to Change, Food Standards Scotland (FSS) declared that the Scottish diet has to change and has called on all stakeholders, including food manufacturers, retailers, politicians and the media, to work together to tackle the problem.

FSS chief executive Geoff Ogle said: “Poor diet is having a serious impact on individuals and on society. Obesity has the capacity to cripple our health services and is a threat to the economy through absence from work through diet-related illness. It is no longer solely a health issue, it is also increasingly an economic one.”

NHS Health Scotland estimates that obesity currently costs the economy, both directly and indirectly, up to £4.6 billion per year, with Scotland now showing the highest incidences of obesity for both men and women among OECD countries.

The second report published by Food Standards Scotland - which advises the Scottish Government on its dietary goals - monitors purchases and price promotions in supermarkets and shops. This is particularly revealing, for it shows the continuing influence of the supermarkets on our buying habits.  While there is a welcome decline in sugar from soft drinks - in the run-up to the sugar levy coming into force in April - this has been offset by increases in sugar purchase from other foods like ice-cream, biscuits and desserts.

Retail price promotions continue to be skewed towards less healthy categories. We are still buying 36% of our overall calories on price promotion, and this can be over 40% of purchases in some Scottish retailers. The report indicates that we are encouraged to buy up to three-quarters (74%) of confectionery on a price promotion.

“The Scottish diet is stuck,” said Heather Peace, head of public health nutrition at FSS. “It remains too high in calories, fats, sugar and salt, and too low in fibre, fruit and veg, and other healthy foods like oil-rich fish. Poor diet exists across all socio-economic groups, but the most deprived tend to have the poorest diets.

“Discretionary foods and drinks, including alcohol, are high in calories, low in nutritional value and are not necessary for our health,” she said, adding that a decline in purchases of sugar drinks had been offset by “disappointing” increases of sugar-laden foods.

Food and drink consumed out of home accounts for some of the worst nutritional value. Interestingly - or, to be more accurate, disturbingly - it was found that when eating away from home, children aged up to 12 tend to eat more unhealthy foods such as burgers, cola, chips, fizzy drinks, cakes and biscuits, fried chicken, and ice cream.

However, there was good news in that public opinion was changing for the better. Nine out of ten people agree that obesity is a serious problem in Scotland, two-thirds think that cafes and restaurants should display calories on their menus, and almost half of Scots support a ban on unhealthy products.

Rather than introduce legislation, calorie indicators or warning labels on food similar to those on cigarette packets, the FSS preferred to encourage behavioural change. “We need to shift consumer behaviour and change the food environment, and are encouraged by the responses from the public, for they demonstrate that there's appetite for change,” said chief executive Geoff Ogle. “Now we need a cross-party effort in achieving this, and the food manufacturers and retailers have to help.”

FSS’s report will feed into the Scottish Government’s updated Obesity Strategy, due to be launched this summer.

Watch this space ...

 

Barra: a food odyssey

I've been lucky enough to visit Barra regularly over the years but the most recent visit, to celebrate my birthday, was unusual in that it took place in mid-summer. Cue fresh langoustines, oysters, monkfish; foraged cockles from the famous beach, made into a bisque; fresh eggs from a neighbouring smallholding; broad beans, courgette flowers, fabulous salad leaves; herbs and flowers; homemade sourdough bread - and more. Some of it we foraged ourselves, some we purchased at the community store Buth Bharraigh, or from the community gardening project in North Bay and we got our langoustine and monkfish from Barratlantic. (We did go foraging for razor clams but couldn't catch the tides.) Here I've put together a visual record of my photographs from the most southerly of the Outer Hebridean islands to save you listening to me further waxing lyrical about the joys and possibilities of self-sufficiency...

Ice-cubes made with foraged borage flowers

The borage plants!

Fresh oyster from @BarraOysters

Midnight moon ...

We get nose to tail. Now for 'beak to feet'...

Robert Morris of the acclaimed St Bride’s poultrynear Strathaven is looking to expand his business – thanks to a surge in demand for his high-welfare, slow-reared, free-range chickens, guinea fowl, ducks and turkey.

“Demand has been fantastic and I’m lucky enough to be supplying some top chefs including Andrew Fairlie, Tom Kitchin and in London Claude Bosi at Hibiscus, Bibendum, John Williams at the Ritz, Brett Graham at the Ledbury, and the Fat Duck,” he says.

But now, to ensure consistency, he want to raise around £30,000 to erect his own on-farm bird slaughterhouse and to improve the accommodation for the birds while young.

Morris buys chicks at one day old and pampers them with a warm, dry home until they’re six to eight weeks old before they go outside. The challenge for him, compared to other poultry farmers south of the Border, is (of course) the Scottish weather.

Very few in the UK, and even fewer in Scotland, are producing this type of poultry. St Brides birds are slow-grown for a minimum of 15 to 20 weeks, compared to other farms, which slaughter their birds at around five weeks old. They are also fed less protein, so they get to forage for bugs, grass, plants, and wild flowers. Their 100% grain feed consists of local wheat, barley and oats.

In addition, St Brides birds are dry-plucked by hand in the traditional way, similar to the prized Poulet de Bresse. Then they’re game hung (that is, with their innards in) for a minimum of 24 hours or four days.

This high welfare process intensifies the flavour and texture of the meat, and makes it pretty unique. That’s why some chefs buy the birds whole, in line with the “beak to feet” ethos.

St Brides only produce around 100 birds a week – compared to the hundreds of thousands that are intensively produced in sheds by the large commercial brands.

All of which costs time and money. I wish him luck. Meantime, here’s some recommended viewing: https://vimeo.com/206027460?ref=em-share

Big Feed: Glasgow hosts street food market with a social conscience

The Big Feed is a new venture by Glasgow's street food vendors, organised by Ben Dantzic (Burger Meets Bun co-founder, ex Peat Inn) with the aim of helping children and young people in crisis though Glasgow The Caring City charity.

Here's the info:

Glasgow foodies will be in for a treat when an indoor street food market featuring some of the finest traders and food trucks Scotland has to offer pops-up this spring, bringing a unique culinary experience to the city.

Big Feed is a brand new venture set up by a number of Glasgow’s street food vendors, and the first event will take place on Saturday 4th March 2017.

Based in Govan in the south side of Glasgow, Big Feed’s industrial indoor venue will play host to some of the best street food concepts and local brewers, set against a backdrop of live music.

On the menu at the market will be a diverse selection of high quality street food. From authentic Asian and Mexican inspired cuisine and fresh Scottish seafood to delicious burgers, wood fired pizzas and vegan fare there will be something for everyone to choose from.

Vendors will include Chompsky, Street Food Putter Club, Firedog, Charlie Mills Coffee, Shrimp Wreck, Nomad Pizza, The Cheesy Toast Shack, Freddy and Hicks, Moo Pie Gelato and more.

Edinburgh’s Campervan Brewery will also be making an appearance, serving up a range of distinct hand crafted beers, whilst mobile Prosecco bar Fizz Buz will provide the bubbly for the occasion.

The warehouse location at 249 Govan Road is run by Glasgow the Caring City – a charity which supports children and young people in crisis at home and overseas in a number of ways, including providing skills to help them gain employment.  Big Feed will be supporting the cause through making use of the venue, as well as by commissioning some of the young apprentices in the programme to prepare the venue for the event.

Ben Dantzic, one of the organisers behind Big Feed, said: “There’s such a great choice of street food markets in European cities and with the scene now gathering pace in the UK, we thought it was the ideal time to join forces and provide a platform to showcase the high quality and diverse range of street food on offer in Glasgow.

“Govan is the ideal location for our first event and we’re proud to be able to bring this exciting new experience, while supporting an extremely worthwhile cause at the same time.”

The event will run from 12noon until 10pm on Saturday 4th March 2017. There is a £1 entry fee on the door and free entry for kids under 10 years old.  Free parking is also available.

Date:  Saturday 4th March 2017

Time: 12noon to 10pm

Location: 249 Govan Road, Glasgow, G51 5HJ

For further information, visit www.facebook.com/bigfeedgla

An Italian restaurant without pizza?

It was a bold move by Victor and Carina Contini to dispense with cliched Italian fare on the new menu of their restaurant in Edinburgh's George Street. Dispensing with pizza and pasta, they have come up with a range of delicious, fresh and imaginative sharing plates that point to a new direction in modern Scots-Italian eating, and also serve as a serious signifier of how the millennial demographic is changing the way we all eat.

Calabrian salami with roasted aubergine, mint creme fraiche, pomegranate and pistachio crumb; DOP (protected designation of origin) buffalo mozzarella with figs and Italian honey and sourdough toast; venison haunch with cavolo nero; and Scottish cod poached in cold-pressed olive oil and served with fennel, samphire and chilli (see below) certainly made me and my tastebuds sit up and take notice. My personal fave is a dish of on-trend raw cauliflower with porcini and lemon oil and dotted with Venetian spiced walnuts.  (Continues after photos .../)

The restaurant itself has undergone an interior revamp, whose most significant changes include a lowering of the central bar to open up the entire space, and a stunning statement wall of heavenly cherubs that greet diners are they arrive. It certainly locates us in southern Italy, while the food itself is sourced both there and in Scotland.

This makes sense when many high street chains continue to serve individual bowls of carb- and calorie-heavy pasta, and pizzas with an increasingly outlandish range of toppings, while at the other end of the scale the artisan pizza movement is also making inroads.

I want to give a shout-out to Contini executive chef Suzanne O'Connor, who is also in charge of the couple's two other Edinburgh restaurants - at the Scottish National Gallery and at Cannonball in the High Street - for her efforts in shaking up our perceptions of modern Italian cuisine. Suzanne is a member of the Slow Food Chefs' Alliance (@slowfoodHQ) (#chefsalliance).

Is this the first hipster Burns Supper?

As the annual round of Burns’ Suppers snaps into action this week, and restaurant menus direct their own nod towards the national Bard, many will be looking forward to the traditional meal of neeps and tatties served with haggis. After all, it was Robert Burns who, with his 1786 Address To A Haggis, ensured the humble international dish endures in modern Scottish culture.

There have been many attempts at contemporising the ancient dish of sheep liver, heart and lung mixed with onion, oatmeal, suet and spices. Some of the most successful contain venison, wild boar, beef and game birds. Haggis itself has been presented outside the usual sheep’s stomach as deep-fried bon-bons, samosas, pakora, lasagne. I’ve even seen a recipe for deep-fried sugar-coated haggis balls.

But I’m willing to bet you’ll never previously have encountered the most modern take on a Burns Supper that is set to be served to Glaswegians on Friday. The Fallachan Dining pop-up menu, entitled After Burns and organised by freelance chef Craig Grozier (pictured), features the most humble Scottish ingredients treated in sophisticated ways using state-of-the-art techniques, and is a collaboration between some of London and Scotland’s most internationally recognised and fiercely talented young freelance chefs. Tantalisingly, haggis as we know it makes only a small appearance. (Continues after photo.)

Grozier engaged NURonTOUR, a team of top young chefs lead by Nurdin Topham (formerly of Michelin-starred NUR Hong Kong, who worked as personal chef to Raymond Blanc and ran the cookery school at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons). His colleagues James Murray and Richard Philips also worked with Raymond Blanc, Gordon Ramsay and at Michel Guerard’s three-star Les Pres d’Eugenie in the south of France. They will be joined by Glasgow-born Ian Scaramuzza, formerly head chef of Claude Bosi’s two-Michelin starred Hibiscus in London and the 2015 winner of a Roux Scholarship to Benu in San Francisco.  

They’ve been working for months on their one-off menu, with a remit to “showcase how it’s possible to have a modern, lighter, approach to humble Scottish food and take it in a new direction”. For the cock-a-leekie course Topham has been collaborating with St Bride’s Poultry of Strathaven to have cock hens aged by hanging for two weeks to create the old-fashioned buttery, gamey flavour lost to so many versions.

Fallachan Barley Miso, Grozier’s own creation fermented in his Glasgow tenement kitchen, will be used across the dishes. Murray’s Humble Neep course uses fermented turnip prepared several ways with barley and seaweed, baked in a haggis crust, while Scaramuzza’s Kedgeree will consist of a set curried custard with blow-torched fish and glazed quail’s egg; and Philips’ Like a Rose dessert is composed of some well-known and some not to well-known members of the rose family, served with crowdie and laminated caramelised pastry.

Grozier himself will recreate a blood porridge, a refined version of black pudding influenced by the historic Scots Drovers’ Porridge, served with foraged preserved pickles.  

Rather than dispense altogether with tradition, the aim is to encourage diners to take a new look at our national dish.

Ticket for the After Burns pop-up, at £100 a head, sold out within two hours of going on sale via social media. Wonder what Robert Burns would have say about that.

(Sorry trhere are no photos but as After Burns is a pop-up, the chefs are still wroking on it ...)

Flora Sheddon: from Bake-off to book to bakery

How refreshing to meet Flora Shedden, the youngest contestant on, and runner-up of, GBBO in 2015. AT only 21, she's already achieved more than many her age could dream of.  We met at Waterstone's when I introduced her inaugural event and signing for Gatherings, her first cookbook (Octopus, £25). (Continues after photo .../)

The big surprise is how little baking is in there and how many seriously savoury recipes she has created (check out her Meikle Logie Lamb, pearl barley risotto and speedy spicy tacos). But it's nothing to do with cutting down on sugar. Flora declared she would never dictate an eating regime like clean eating. Rather, she reckons - quite rightly - that a little bit of everything in moderation means you get a healthy balanced diet.

She's planning to open a bakery in Dunkeld, in her native Perthshire, and though she doesn't yet have a name for it it's likely to be Flora's. Oh, and she's also a presenter on BBC Scotland's Kitchen Cafe.

Here's to a new generation of young women cooks.

MasterChef winner Maclean wants to be Scotland's first National Chef

It was great fun, if a little hectic, to be in MasterChef: The Professionals winner Gary Maclean's kitchen at home, watching him cook a version of his winning dish. Unfazed by my presence and that of Herald Magazine photographer Kirsty Anderson, he said that compared to cooking all the meals at home for his five children and wife Sharon, while holding down a full-time job as Senior Chef Lecturer on City of Glasgow College's HND in Profesional Cookery, competing in MasterChef was "a breeze". Not only that but when I asked if he'd be up for the new role of Scotland's first National Chef, he said he'd love to be considered. Here's the news story published in The Herald (the main interview with Gary is too long for a blog spot so it is available tt read in the Published Work section of my website).

Masterchef Gary Maclean wants to become Scotland's National Chef

*Exclusive* January 14, 2017

Gary Maclean, the UK's newest MasterChef, has said he would like to be considered for the role of Scotland's first National Chef. The post, the first of its type in the world, was revealed exclusively by The Herald as a key pledge in the SNP Government’s manifesto last May and it is seeking to appoint someone within the current parliament.

If appointed Maclean, 45, a senior chef lecturer at the City of Glasgow College and a father of five, would act as ambassador, championing good food across Scotland and encouraging higher consumption of fresh local produce. The role chimes with the SNP’s pledge to introduce a Good Food Nation bill, a new £5 million fund to promote island and regional food and drink brands, a renewed drive to increase demand for the supply and demand of organic food in Scotland and to encourage local authorities to procure more Scottish produce.

In a wide-ranging exclusive interview published in The Herald Magazine today, Mr Maclean, who teaches on the college’s acclaimed HND Professional Cookery course and who notably promoted Scottish produce in every dish he cooked for the high-profile BBC Two cookery competition, said: “I’d love to be Scotland’s national chef. I’m passionate about Scottish produce and I don’t think there’s enough education about it generally.

“There’s a massive gap between what we grow and what we actually eat. We somehow have to bridge that gap. The general public don’t get how good our produce is. I ask my new students, which country produces the best salmon in the world? They never get the answer right. They say Spain, France, Norway, but never, ever Scotland.

“I think this lack of knowledge comes from the parents. We can blame the supermarkets, because they only sell what we want to buy. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

At City of Glasgow College Mr Maclean teaches student chefs the essential skills of butchering, bakery and fishmongery, as well as how to run a professional kitchen. He has taught many of the best chefs working across the UK, including Herald Magazine columnist Graeme Cheevers of the Michelin-starred Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond and Calum Montgomery of the Michelin-starred Kinloch Lodge on Skye. The upmarket chocolatier William Curley of Harrods is also a former student.

But he added: “Too many mid-range restaurants buy in food pre-prepared, which means chefs are losing their skills.

And he said that cheap meal deals undermine the value of restaurant food. “Customers need to understand the work that goes in to putting food on the plate.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “We are currently consdiering options to deliver the commitment ot appoint a National Chef in consultation with stakeholders.”

In Glasgow, dessert no longer means DFMB*

A dessert-only menu sounds like a sugar-addict’s dream. And when I heard the concept - more common in Europe than the UK - was making its Scottish debut in Glasgow, alarm bells rang. After all, the city surely has the sweetest tooth of the entire nation, not to mention diet-related health issues like obesity and Type 2 Diabetes. Was someone having a laugh?

Pastry chef Helen Vass’s first-ever pop-up, sweetly entitled Dulce, curbed my qualms. Her three-course afternoon menu, with an amuse bouche and macarons to top and tail it, was presented to 30 guests around the kitchen table of the stunning Studio93 in the city's West End.. It contained olive oil, sea salt, mascarpone, sourdough, seasonal fruits and 67.4% cacao by Caillebaut. Sweetness was checked with saltiness; fat content reduced with whipping, rather than double, cream. Helen's mastery of technique was evident. All dishes were her own creations.

A mango sphere, made in front of us and served on a spoon, kicked off proceedings. There followed her signature, pretty-as-a-picture raspberry, marscarpone and pistachio entremet complete with pipette of Chambord (created for the GBBOcreme final), then a chocolate cremeux quenelle paired with an olive oil ice-cream and sourdough toast; and to finish an individual oblong of olive oil cake with white choc cremeux, caramelised muesli, mandarin foam and mandarin granita.

Helen Vass's raspberry, marcapone and pistachio entremet, with Chambord pipette

Is Glasgow ready for me? Helen Vass at Kember & Jones, Glasgow - with sample entremet!

None of us felt bloated or sugared-out; rather, we were exhilarated. And rather proud that the citizens of Glasgow had willingly supported Helen's bold move: at £45 a head it had sold out within days of going online.

The Milngavie-born freelance pastry chef at Number 16 restaurant in Glasgow - who trained at City of Glagow College, worked in Barcelona for seven years, has done stages with some of the most highly respected pastry chefs there and in France, and still pays her own way to attend training courses at high-end pastry schools in Barcelona - tells me she too had reservations about mounting such a venture in Glasgow. Though for a different reason than mine.

She was worried that people wouldn't pay that much, and that there wasn't a market in Glasgow for high-end (Michelin star?) patisserie like hers.

I'm pleased she took the plunge, and thrilled to have been in at the beginning of what I believe will be a massive success both for Helen for Glasgow - and beyond.

* Deep Fried Mars Bar - a wilful slur if ever I heard one. Scots don't eat them; tourists do.

Tom Kitchin on his Scottish suppliers: "This is their moment too"

Dead impressed with #KitchinAtHarrods, the (sold-out) first London pop-up by chef Tom Kitchin in the Conservatory at The Georgian restaurant on the fourth floor at Harrods. I don't just mean the actual food, delicious as it was. I mean the fact that he made a point of involving all his Scottish suppliers in the logistically complex week-long venture. They included Campbells Orkney scallops, Welch Fishmongers turbot, Knockraich Farm yogurt pannacotta, as well as his forager (Bute Seaweed) and others.

Tom announced: "This is their moment too," to his London diners, most of whom had never tasted Scottish produce before. Bravo, chef.

(Tom's take-away range, based on the menu at Scran and Scallie, is on sale at Harrods Food Hall and online unatil Christmas.)

Tom with chocolatier William Curley, who created special chocolates for #KitchinAtHarrods pop-up. Check the Timorous Beasties wallpaper, recreating The Kitchin

Pret a Manger to help the Glasgow homeless at Christmas

Whatever your feelings about another coffee shop chain opening in another local high street, Pret a Manger's new branch in Byres Road in Glasgow's West End is doing its bit to help others. The company has just announced it's looking for a homeless charity to partner with.

I hereby nominate Emmaus Glasgow.

Suggestions can be made to Pret’s Foundation Trust Manager via Juanita.cracchiolo@pret.com

Whatever your feelings about another coffee shop chain opening in another local high street, Pret a Manger's new branch in Byres Road in Glasgow's West End is doing its bit to help others. The company has just announced it's looking for a homeless charity to partner with.

I hereby nominate Emmaus Glasgow.

Suggestions can be made to Pret’s Foundation Trust Manager via Juanita.cracchiolo@pret.com

Low-calorie Scottish gin? It's all in the botanicals ...

Interesting news of a new low-cal Scottish gin. It's a juniper-distilled spirit called Minus 33 and while lower in alcohol it's higher in botanicals – including coriander seed, angelica, liquorice and orris roots, lavender, elderflower and orange and lemon peel.

In fact it's not really a gin. At just 33 per cent ABV, the spirit is under the 37.5 per cent threshold required to be called a gin. It can be sipped neat.

It's been created by Sam Trett, founder of LoCa Lab Distilling of Edinburgh, a company set up to explore innovative new approaches to drinks. The packaging - including a bag of hibiscus petals, included with every online order - is by Good of Glasgow.