I had lunch at this old favourite Edinburgh restaurant and my feelings haven't changed
I tried this classic venue on its birthday
There’s one problem with restaurant reviews. Places change.
You go somewhere, write about it, and your piece lurks on the internet forever. That momentary hot take is just a snapshot, but stays immutable as a gravestone.
For example, I wondered if The Palmerston could still be as wonderful as I remembered?
It has, after all, been almost exactly five years since it first opened and I penned my inaugural soppy love letter. That means it’s almost 79 in restaurant years.
Stuff has happened since 2021. Trump (again), AI, small plates, hot honey and Dubai chocolate, for example. Tasting menus have come in and out of fashion at least a dozen times.
I have more wrinkles and new reading glasses that I always leave at home by accident, but am zero-per-cent wiser, and Edinburgh has gone tourist-tastic.
Still, I’m happy to find that this restaurant’s interior is almost exactly the same as I remembered. It’s in a grand former bank building, at its tram-spotting crossroads corner perch, with a kaleidoscopic tiled floor, pea-coloured marble and bistro-seating. There’s the same surreal painting of a crocodile across the wall, though its edges are slightly dog-eared now, and the photo of Ainsley Harriott as you go down to the loo. Ready, stead, cook!
The menu - if I squinted. because I’d forgotten those specs - looks pleasingly familiar, too, with the whole nose-to-tail old-school butter heavy vibe. Ah, it’s good to be back.
I feel as cosily coddled as an egg, especially once I’ve had a very reasonably priced cocktail in the form of a guillotini (£10). It slices off any stress, with its mixture of smoky Pello del Perro Mezcal, Cynar, Cocchi Americano and Palmerston’s own limoncello. It’s my perfect mixture, at a medicinal strength. He loves his With Friends Like These (£10), too. It’s light and frothy, with a combination of Casamigos Anejo Tequila, tingly white and pink peppercorns, chilli and strawberry soda.
We decide to opt for things on the food menu that feel typically Palmerston coded.
Although it’s a slightly wintery choice for July, I love my duck offal (£13) - a clutch of bouncy and dense thumb-like hearts, on a thick doorstopper of toast, with a caramelised and chutney-ish sticky dollop of Lyonnaise onions.
My dining partner has opted for the meaty salad that is the cold roast Berkshire pork (£14), which is served in a huge jumbled portion of tender and feathery meaty sheets, whole battered spring onions, parsley, and quarters of marinated apricots to provide the sweet-sour tang. Those starters instantly put werewolf hairs on our chests, a-wooo!
In the interests of chiaroscuro, I’ve gone for something slightly lighter for my main - the pollock (£32). It has sea-salted crispy skin that’s the colour of Glasgow bricks, and is served with stocky white beans, gremolata, charred spring onions, and a large dollop of sun-lotion-slick aioli.
He clamps his laughing gear round a vast and rich portion of braised Dexter veal belly (£29), on a bouncy castle of wet polenta, with a moat of meaty jus, and a maribou-feather flurry of grated Parmesan, as well as charred Padron peppers to pick out by their stems, as if he’s eating grapes on his chaise longue all day long.
Pudding is equally excellent. No, it’s even better than the savoury stuff.
I mean, this kitchen has alumni including Darcie Maher from Edinburgh viral bakery Lannan, so it couldn’t let us down at the sweet thing juncture.
The triangle of super light chocolate olive oil cake (£9), served with halved strawberries and cream, is so amazing that I want to paint it like one of my French girls, and hang its portrait in my boudoir.
“Whoever made this should be paraded around town on an open top bus,” says my other half.
We’re also smitten by the rice pudding ice-cream (£8), which is served in an old-school sundae glass and is texturally custardy, and comes with fat and boozy rum-injected raisins. I wonder if anyone has ever got stocious on raisins. There’s a first for everything.
So, things do change. If anything is different at The Palmerston since my last visit, it’s that the food is more confident. They’ve got swag.
It definitely ain’t broke, and I’m not just saying that because I’m drunk on raisins.
See you again, in five years time.
The Palmerston, 1 Palmerston Place, Edinburgh (0131 220 1794 , www.thepalmerstonedinburgh.co.uk)
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.