IT would never be my first instinct to dine in a hotel - it's rarely gastronomic rock'n'roll - but eating in Hadrian's, the brasserie in Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel, reminded me that there are sometimes good reasons for doing so.
Hadrian's couldn't be more central, so it's easy for everyone to get there. It is also supremely comfortable, and although the place is healthily busy, you can hear yourself speak; none of that irritating shouting over din that batters the nerves and the vocal chords.
Holding a Michelin star for its scarily expensive fine dining restaurant, the Balmoral as a whole is a well-honed operation run by professionals: soundly-trained chefs who make proper stock from scratch, turn out flawless soufflés, and whip up perfect emulsified sauces without even blinking, chefs who cook from a constantly renewed store of top-class ingredients. Tick, tick, tick.
And then there's value for money, which is not the same thing as cheap. It's worth noting that the set lunch and pre-theatre menus in Hadrian's are among the best bargains in the capital, a service to the populace that it shares with Galvin's Brasserie de Luxe at the other end of Princes Street in the Caledonian Hotel, where you also get exceptional ingredients, and polished cooking, at a surprisingly low price. It's so easy these days to clock up £80 for two in a crummy, out-of-centre bistro where the tables snag your clothes and the kiddywinks at the stove have all the professional competence of a turnip.
With a nip in the air, the otherwise boring option of soup assumed a sudden appeal, and I so enjoyed the roast cep and puy lentil soup, that I may even try making it at home. But it won't be as good. Anyone can liquidise a pile of fungi and lentils, but this was a thick, smooth, velvety emulsion that caressed the palate with its three-dimensional flavour - doubtless from a well-made stock - cranked up classily by its snowy cap of extravagant truffle cream. On the £14.50 for two courses fixed-price menu, the modest-sounding green pea and courgette soup was another retiring beauty. What could easily have been a lazy green sludge was a fresh, clean, mouth-filler with an almost mousse-like texture, and a distinct, sharp overlay, as if fresh herbs, even lemon, had been added at the last minute.
If soups like these, eaten with high-quality baguette and milky French butter, are the culinary equivalent of wrapping yourself in cashmere, then the gnocchi and wild mushroom gratin was like lying down on a bed of fluffy sheepskin. The dumplings had just the right granular texture. Their painstakingly formed ridges provided the undulating surface to grip the positively Alpine cheese sauce. No foppish makeweight cheddar here, but the distinctive, nutty aroma of well-aged Gruyère, its elastic strings pulling up as you dive under the smouldering, bubbling crust.
As for the other main course, you'll never find the sparkling freshness of my plump tranche of cod on any supermarket fish counter. It was a head-turner with its black olive crust, and unimpeachable beurre blanc stippled with black herring roe (Avruga). And if you're a Brussels sprouts-dodger, tasting it mashed up (with cream, butter, lemon perhaps?), will convert you.
You'd expect an immaculate crème brulée at Hadrian's, and that's what you get, with caramel so fragile it needed a "thin ice"-style warning. A tarte Tatin, made my favourite way, with halves, not slices of apple, and pate brisée pastry, would have been another stunner, had it not still been cold in the middle. And with something this sticky and caramelised, I for one would prefer a sour crème fraiche to a ball of well made, but extremely sweet vanilla ice cream.
The only thing that puzzles me about Hadrian's is the front-of-house set-up. The female waiting staff really work for their wages, but the men seem to stand around not doing a lot other than fiddling with computers and showing people to tables. Ah, the gender politics of the hospitality business.
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