Plumed Horse

It may look humble enough from the outside, on an unassuming Georgian street in Leith, but once across the threshold it is clear that there is nothing ordinary about Tony Borthwick's gaff. The restaurant has a mature, calm, and confident demeanour, with warm colours on the walls, period plasterwork, high class fixtures and fittings, and a regularly-changing array of bold modern artworks on display; it has fine dining written all over it, and that's exactly what comes out of the kitchen. High quality produce is central to everything here, with the well developed supply lines bringing in Scottish produce of the highest order, and the food is best described as modern European, with classical technique to the fore and bags of contemporary finesse. There are four choices at each course at dinner, or a tasting menu (with matching wines) if you want to put the kitchen through its paces. A first course hot and cold wood pigeon with plum and fig jam, thyme brioche and sauce Cumberland gets things off to a flying start, or there might be a foie gras soufflé with foie gras 'nugget', Gewürztraminer jelly and golden raisins. Next up could be main-course 'casserole' of free-range Scottish rose veal with accompanying sautéed kidney and sweetbreads, or roast fillet of monkfish with Alsace bacon, smoked eel, capers, sauce vierge and green ham sauce. The verve and vigour continues to the very end: chocolate and blood orange trifle, perhaps, served with a blood orange sorbet.