Slighhouse
54 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh
0131 225 6936
Lunch £7-25; dinner £20-£25
Food rating 7/10
BAR Kohl, formerly an oasis of gloom on Edinburgh's George IV Bridge, has had a fashion update. Its old capsule wardrobe of black, black and more black - the clue was in the name - looked dated. I had passed by hundreds of times without feeling the slightest urge to drop in, lest it tilt me into depression. Now, it seems, people aren't so keen to hang out on a set made for Lisbeth Salander and a crew of Goth computer hackers, so the management has got to work with a can of white paint, transforming an energy-sapping cloud into a luminous pool of optimism. It's only a pity that refurbishment of the premises does not seem to have included an overhaul of the kitchen's extraction system: the whole place smells of deep-fat frying, assaulting the nostrils and clinging to your clothes.
On the marketing front, the old booze-led name has been replaced by another, Slighhouse, hinting at a more interesting back story. The website explains that the restaurant and bar are homages to the father of modern geology, James Hutton. In the 1750s, he had a family farm at Slighhouses in Berwickshire, where he grew much of his own food, although his connection to this establishment is fanciful: "Slighhouse today is a cocktail bar and restaurant which doffs its bunnet to Hutton, from the sandwich ply and angles in our woodwork mimicking sedimentary rocks and strata, to the specially commissioned art, and seasonal approach taken with our menus." Still, a bold attempt to spin an interesting pedigree out of nothing and at the same time subtly change the emphasis away from alcohol onto food.
In another reorientation that chimes with restaurant food fashion, the burgers that once featured heavily on the menu have been axed and replaced by small sharing plates designed for "social eating", the type of thing served so successfully at The Potting Shed, which is only five minutes away. There, the cooking is steady; at Slighhouse it is erratic. The Slighhouse slaw, for instance, was a flamboyant flop of cabbage in a cloying, puce-coloured gloop that would wouldn't look amiss is a deadbeat sandwich bar. Blush-pink forced rhubarb and palatable vanilla custard would have made a nice dessert simply served in a ramekin. Why, oh why, layer them up like an ungainly tower of open sandwiches, and why use bread that had all the character of baked cotton wool with hints of plaster of Paris?
That's the sort of serious lapse that makes you wonder about the kitchen's judgement; so much so, that when it does get something right, you wonder if it's luck. But then again, although it was another visual clodhopper, you'd have to hate life to take against the voluminous, foamy dark chocolate mousse, served as a "slider" inside big, buttery, brown, sugary cookies.
Overall, patchy is the word that comes to mind when describing the Slighhouse food offering. So the glazed flat-iron steak more than delivered the deep, rich, umami flavour you'd expect from this famously flavoursome shoulder cut, but you just had to ignore the accompanying sickly sweet shallot purée, and the dill pickle, which was as interesting as dill pickle ever gets. Innocuous salt cod dumplings (fritters really) didn't have the pluck to stand up to a domineering orange chorizo, but the presence of lusciously cooked beetroot edged this dish towards a pass rather than a fail. Likewise, a porky-pink Scotch egg with drooling yolk and pungent brown sauce, both homemade, tended to put you in an approving mood. When you bite into the fresh baked cornbread slathered with bacon and lime butter, then the smile widens into a grin. And who can carp about the Slighhouse "Hutton's Express" lunchtime formula? Soup of the day, corn bread, and any plate up to £7, is a city centre bargain.
Cocktails are big here, and, well, gimmicky. "Tea At The Genever Convention" for instance, unites zuidam genever, cherry heering, citric acid, chai tea syrup, soda, and cinnamon tincture spray for £7.50. Strangely, I don't feel the urge to try it.
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