Food takes centre stage at Orkney festival

The plates of food in this very focused five-course tasting menu are breathtaking in their absolute precision, intensity of flavour, and absence of superfluity. One dish, simply entitled Course 4: Pigeon, is a masterpiece of four-day cured deep red flesh, roasted beetroot, burnt onion, tomato oil, an artful mix of the carefully strewn and the meticulously tweezer-placed; it is utterly delicious. Course 5: Soft Cheese is a mischievously understated, outrageously delicious ewe's milk curd sweetened with burnt sugar, and paired with pink strawberry granita and white meringue.

We've already sampled Course 1: Salmon roe, jewel-bright oily pearls that burst to release intense flavour that is tamped by 14-day fermented rye bread, home-made and yeast-free; and Course 2: Spring veg, a deceptively satisfying melange of individual plants such as baby leek, spring onion, asparagus, mangetout and beetroot, all lightly cooked and served with cucumber granita and drizzled with a subtle and unique home-made birch oil.

It's a delightful journey through the fresh produce of Scotland and London, and into the highly disciplined mind of Ink Restaurant's young chef-proprietor Martyn Meid.

"Look at the cod," he enthuses of Course 3. "When you cut into it you see the rainbow on the flesh, its beautiful lines and colours. It is so fresh. Its intense quality shines out. It is a cold water fish, which means it has been active and not lazy. I like that."

His wild Scottish fish is line-caught; his vegetables are from turnips at Borough Market; he sources as locally as possible and if he can't source what he wants or it isn't in season he won't put it on his menu. His business partner John sets out at 4am to visit 10 markets two or three times a week. Foraging for ramsons, fennel shoots, wild sorrel and baby birch leaves is a big part of Meid's life (which is why he calls himself a "wild child"). He uses the whole animal, including lungs, kidneys and heart; he does his own curing, fermenting, smoking.

He doesn't use butter, cream or olive oil; only the fats that are indigenous to Nordic cuisine, such as curds, sour cream and buttermilk. Neither does he use pepper, or yeast.

It's clear that this young man is intensely serious about food. Here is a chef who knows exactly what he is about, who clearly identifies with the lands of the northern latitudes - such as the Baltic countries, northern Russia and Scandinavia.

Born in the small seaport town of Kleipeda in Lithuania, Meid, 27, learned the basics of curing and pickling from his German grandmother. A lover of the raw, the cold and the natural, he is now one of London's most talked-about champions of Nordic cuisine.

"I love the north," he says. "I like making food that is Nordic and wintry."

Scroll forward to next month, and he will be able to include Orkney in that northern land cultural sweep. He has been invited to the St Magnus Festival by artistic director Alasdair Nicolson to provide canapes for audiences at a concert by the celebrated Lithuanian Ciurlionis Quartet, which takes place at Balfour Castle on Shapinsay on June 24.

As they listen to music by the 19th century Lithuanian composer Mikalojus Konstantinas �iurlionis, as well as contemporary Lithuanian folk music and Schubert's desolate Death and the Maiden, they can look forward to a selection of Meid's signature creations, exquisitely presented and made with the freshest-possible local produce and foraged herbs.

These ingredients will be sourced on the day of the concert and are likely to include local shellfish like Westray crab, Kirkwall scallops and lobster, and North Ronaldsay lamb. There are plants and herbs and produce aplenty, though it's unlikely Meid will use the famous Grimbister cheese since he doesn't use dairy. He may, however, use mozzarella from Orkney buffalo.

Celebrating such a marked link between the two cultures and cuisines is an unusual step, but it comes from a conscious wish to expand the sensory experience for audiences of the UK's most northerly music festival.

Alasdair Nicolson, composer and artistic director of the St Magnus Festival, is also an enthusiastic amateur foodie and cook. He is keen to showcase Orkney's larder to the festival's 14,000 or so visitors - even if many Orcadian artisan producers have a tendency to be less than forthcoming about their bounty, which is all too often sent directly to the mainland or exported before locals get to taste it; perhaps that's why there are surprisingly few restaurants in the archipelago.

Nicolson introduced food as a major theme at the St Magnus Festival last year by inviting the celebrated Norwegian forager-chef Mikael Forselius to devise dishes for the audience attending the Trondheim Soloists concert, as part of the festival's celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Norwegian constitution and Orkney's enduring links to that country. It was a resounding success.

As well as Martyn Meid, this year he has also invited Jean Baptiste Bady, chef at Balfour Castle, to provide an afternoon tea for audiences at the Bardic Trio concert featuring folk songs by Eddie McGuire and composers from Latin America and Wales. The famous Orkney food writer F. Marian MacNeill will be celebrated in The Johnsmas Foy: thoughts from the kitchen table; and there is to be an Orkney Food & Drink producers' market in Kirkwall.

For 40th anniversary next year, Nicolson is planning an even bigger food offer, and hopes to attract the likes of chefs Tom Kitchin and Tomasina Miers to come and cook. He is also in talks with Duncan McLean, the Kirkwall wine merchant, about mounting a joint concert and wine tasting event. McLean's play, Telling the Truth Beautifully, about the infamous 19th century case of gin smuggling in Kirkwall, is premiered this year.

When I ask if he has been inspired by other music festivals to up the food content, he says simply: "St Magnus festival is unique; it's a confluence of its significant history and its significant produce. Orkney has strong connections with Scandinavia and the northern lands. It's difficult to look around and see anything similar. I think Orkney is strangely unique and there are no other festivals to emulate. If anything, other festivals look to us rather than the other way round.

"I'm a person who's interested in lots of things, apart from composing. Like eating, cooking, gardening, all the things I do that aren't art. So this is a reflection of me as artistic director.

"People still reminisce about the Forselius event last year, which Mikael did in collaboration with Orkney Brewery," he adds. "It proves that music and food are a natural match for modern festival audiences and that the cultural experience is more than just the concert. People like the idea of a musical or theatrical event that has added social value.

"I'm hoping Martyn Meid will bring something that really is astonishing, food that will match the outstanding beauty of the music in the exquisite surroundings of the drawing room at Balfour Castle, whose windows look back over the sound to Kirkwall. The event will be virtuosic, extraordinary, beautiful, in all senses.

"It should be an astonishing sensory experience for the eyes, the ears and the mouth. I hope audiences will be shellshocked by it and that Martyn's food will make the excursion something they will always remember."

St Magnus International Festival runs from June 18-25, 2015. Stmagnusfestival.com