I tried the £29 menu at this utterly sublime Edinburgh restaurant
This place has had a makeover
I waited outside Edinburgh’s Eleanore for 20 minutes.
Usually, accidentally arriving that early for lunch would make me crotchety. Not this time. That’s because it was sunny, Leith Walk was like Las Ramblas, and I was enjoying listening to the chatter of passing folk who seemed to all be talking about the same thing - food. One guy was telling a friend how far he’d cycled for a tiramisu, and a teenager said that she loved mushrooms so much that her dad had got tired of cooking them for her, so she was eating them raw.
Anyway, I was starving when 1pm hit, and excited to revisit Eleanore - owned by executive chef Roberta Hall-McCarron and Shaun McCarron of The Little Chartroom and Ardfern - to see its recent makeover. They’ve ditched the small plates and tasting menus and transformed into a lovely old-school bistro.
That’s included a reconfiguration of the bijoux space. So, instead of the long thin tables and high stools, there are now more traditional low slung seating arrangements, and a colour scheme of chocolatey browns, pale wood and creams. Apparently, they’re trying to revive the feel of the place when it was the original location for The Little Chartroom, before becoming Eleanore in late 2021.
The new menu has a focus on bistro classics, and the prices for a place with this pedigree are great. For example, their lunch is £26 for two courses and £29 for three (also available as a pre-theatre on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5-5.30pm). We went for that.
You can also upgrade, with a few bits from the snacks list. It includes English muffin, smoked honey butter (£6 for two) or oysters, nori hot sauce (£8 for two), but we went straight to the main event and then had instant regret and envy when we saw the table next to us scoffing those delights.
Still, I was soon focused on my starter of cured trout, which was as beautiful as a Photoshopped celeb. There were three vibrantly hued slices of fish, sea aster and parsley, a sweet turnip cream and slices of peppery raw neep, plus juicy bright orange roe that popped like bubble wrap.
My beau had ordered the cauliflower soup, and it had triggered a long monologue about why his soups never turned out as good as this. Well, because you’re not a top chef, sweetie, I nearly said, but kept my cakehole shut. This delight was laced with crumbly and balsamic-y bits of walnut, and thyme, and there was a blob of chantilly cream on top to make it all luxuriant, like Marie Antoinette’s bouffed wig.
Mains were even dreamier. The lamb rump had satisfyingly crisped fatty edges, and came with bitter radicchio leaves, wild garlic and a soft shallot. I never get excited about puy lentils, but these pulses made mine quicken, with a rich smokey, garlic and caramelised flavour that was intense without being cloying. This mixture was springier than The Magic Roundabout’s Zebedee.
Our other main featured a CD-case-sized piece of fish, a plush magnolia-hued buttermilk sauce, the butteriest mash ever, charred broccoli, and a chiffonade of chives. It put the “oh” in the word bistro.
”If I was going to have one dish before Trump blows the world up, it’d be this,” said my other half.
I felt the same about my lamb, tbh. We’d also ordered a side of perfectly crispy and salted chips (£7), and I had a beautiful ice-cold martini (£12) with gin, dry vermouth, fino sherry and orange bitters, while he tried the yuzu spritz (£11), which featured sake, yuzu, jasmine, suze and sparkling wine. He doesn’t usually like spritzers, but this was something else, and it went really well with the fish, he says.
There were just two sweet puddings and a cheese option. I went for the classic chocolate mousse, which is scooped tableside, from a big cauldron of the stuff. I’d like to plunge my whole head in there. It was excellent - frothy and light, with choccy shavings on top. This choice felt like a bonus double dessert, as it came with a second bowl that contains a tangy syllabub with cream on top. While I made short work of this, he had lemon posset, which was topped by a layer of rhubarb jelly and rhubarb, with tiny button-sized meringues on top.
Well, I’m totally smitten by this iteration of Eleanore, though I struggle to digest the fact that those high calibre courses would be just £29.
If you were hanging around The Walk that afternoon, you probably would have overheard me raving about this restaurant, all the way home.
30-31 Albert Place, Edinburgh (0131 600 0990, www.eleanore.uk)
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