I'm always asked where to find Edinburgh's best Sunday lunch, now I know what to tell them

Contributed

I’ve been a restaurant reviewer for a couple of millennia now.

One of the most commonly asked questions I used to get asked was, where can I get a good Sunday roast in Edinburgh?

That doesn’t happen so often now. I think this traditional meal’s popularity has declined. Generation Z are too busy eating kimchi noodles.

However, I still get the occasional person who asks for a recommendation. To be honest, I have always struggled with an answer. Usually, I’ll say, what’s that in the sky behind you, before roly-poly-ing away before they can look round again.

Now, I can mention The Captain Darling, which is presumably named after the Blackadder character and is in the former premises of Hamilton’s in Stockbridge.

Not that Sunday lunch is all it does. This is a seven-day operation, which offers things like chicken schnitzel and fish pie, and there is a decent kids menu, not to mention a Workers’ Lunch, Monday to Friday, where you can get a substantial main course for £12.50.

This new pub seems like a friendly rival to Tom Kitchin’s nearby gastropub, Scran & Scallie, just along the road, and has a crack squad of cheffy talent behind it.

There’s Scott Smith, formerly of the excellent but recently closed down fine-dining restaurant, Fhior. As part of his new project, Blank Plate Creative, he’s helping with the launch of this place, which is owned by the folk behind Oir Group, who operate Bodega as well as the fun and vibrant Lucky Yu on Broughton Street.

Great pedigree, and we like the interior, with its teal walls and box-fresh mustard yellow velvet banquettes. We bagged an ideal people-watching spot by the window, though I think the passers-by were watching us rather than vice versa, especially when the Sunday lunch menu plates started arriving. The people at the bus stop had eyes as big as saucers.

No wonder. I’d gone for the prawn cocktail (£9.50), which wasn’t made with those retro tiny and hard commas, but five big fat langoustines. They were slapped in plenty of Marie Rose sauce, with a good whack of Tabasco and cayenne, and served with crispy strips of iceberg heart. I teamed this with an equally calamine-coloured El Sueno tequila based paloma (£10) cocktail.

He tried the haggis and smoked Dunlop croquettes (£9.50). This starter consisted of three mobile-phone-sized sea-salted bricks, but, luckily, they were lighter than they looked, with a melty liquid centre and crispy Panko cladding. They came with a ramekin of beautifully tangy and molasses sweet brown sauce, and a pile of pickled cucumbers.

Gaby Soutar

The main event was next. You can choose confit chicken leg (£20) finished on the barbecue, or hispi cabbage (£15), which has Smith’s name all over it, since he did amazing things with this humble veg at Fhior. However, I went for the rare breed porchetta (£23), and my other half went for the dry aged sirloin roast beef (£26).

I can’t remember the last time I had proper crackling in a restaurant. With this stuff, you could probably hear my crunching reverberating all the way down to Comely Bank. These were on two saucer-sized slabs of soft meat, which came with all the trimmings - aka a huge pair of crunchy-seamed potatoes, perfect rosemary-injected carrots, vibrantly green charred broccoli, and the most intensely meaty and addictive, sticky and rich gravy.

Gaby Soutar

I’m almost entirely unique, in that Yorkshire puddings don’t do anything for me. However, I handed my fluffy and chestnut dappled cloud over to my pud taster and he joyously guddled them both around in the gravy, then noshed them.

We should’ve both been stretchered out at this point, since it was now very difficult to bend and we were both in the midst of a carb slump. However, we thought it’d be remiss not to sample the sticky toffee pudding (£7.50), since it’s a classic. My most regular disappointment, with this specific dessert, is down to sauce quantity. In this case, they’d included about a pint of the warm butterscotch stuff, and there was also a scoop of Mackie’s vanilla ice-cream beside the block of relatively airy sponge.

So, yeah, ask me where to go for Sunday lunch, and it’s obviously going to be this place. I need not distract you, and roll away.

At last, I have an answer.

16-18 Hamilton Place, Edinburgh (0131-563 0404, www.thecaptaindarling.com)

Read more: “I tried the £99 dinner at this luxury five-star Scottish hotel and was utterly spoiled rotten”

Read more: “I introduced my mum to the restaurant at Scotland’s best hotel, and she’s loved it ever since”