So we find ourselves staring down at a plate of potato, artichoke, truffle, onion, hazelnut and a few other things.

Up until this very moment we'd been talking about the good old days in newspapers: about when Magnus lived in a flat right above this converted former timber yard, with its exposed planks on the ceiling, huge glass door and carefully-pulled-over, almost-fully-shut, sliding door in bright red paint. The carefully strewn vegetables occupy no more than half of a large plate. The other half? Completely bare terracotta. At the same time we're also looking curiously at the menu. Ah here it is. This costs £21.

Now, it's not about the money, so what does it taste like? Er...There are moments of chewing through occasionally very hard Jerusalem artichoke - which grew like weeds on my allotment incidentally - which are gum numbingly boring. Then's there's the high notes with the foam, the hazelnut crumbs and the shallot, which are pleasant. The truffle passed me by.

You may think, well, why order it? The truth is the menu in Timberyard, which was apparently described as brutalist, is to my eyes simply stupidist. Add pretentious and annoying to that mix. Ingredients are listed with absolutely no clue as to what is to be done with them. One is seemingly to bow at the temple of local sourced, high cheffery. Plenty do.

A waitress, pleasant, good-looking like all the staff, breezes over and by way of introduction reveals that the restaurant suggests we each order one dish from every one of the four courses on the menu. It seems like brash up-selling and makes us laugh, but the real reason is no dish alone makes any sense. Or offers much sustenance.

Still, we comply. We have to. The menu offers no assistance to what we'll actually be eating, but the staff are back and forward incessantly, so we simply pick the first two dishes on every course to get some peace.

From the Bite labeled section of the menu - £6 by the way - comes smoked egg, ham, potato, tarragon et al. It leaves only one sensation: ridiculously salty.

There's crab, horseradish, pear, toast and sour cream. More pleasant, but tastes like a crab cocktail.

Each dish will come in exactly the same laboriously scattered style with acres of empty plate.

At least there's a scary clutching pigeon claw decorating the Small Plate (£13) of breast, squash, chard, elderberry liver and onion. This is better: the pigeon moist, the ingredients not just distant cousins from the allotment of taste. Better still is seared cauliflower with toast curd, rye celery and ale. In fact the curd and the cauliflower taken together are quite delicious.

This is the first moment, I can assure you, when Timberyard stops seeming like somewhere that has disappeared far too far up the backside of the now tired Noma-inspired local foraging schtick and becomes interesting.

The second moment comes with the smoked beef, possibly done under straw beneath a grey Edinburgh sky by a sous chef with tears welling in his eyes, though who would know from the menu. This is a fabulous thick, succulent piece of wonderful meat with the cauliflower, kohlrabi, mushroom and radish providing moments in which to recall how good the meat is.

Course four is the £10 desserts. Another pause here to point out that whatever grim and soulless sins are being committed on the plate the restaurant is warm, bright, filed with chattering couples, large tables, people drinking right-on cocktails at the couches in the middle. It buzzes.

My old poker pal Chico wanders over unexpectedly to reveal that the American corporation he works for are now off for a burger having dined here. Americans eh?

We have Sea Buckthorn, carrot, crowd and buttermilk to finish. Honey, pollen, gooseberry and almond, milk and barley to consider. Both pleasant, both worthy, but like most of this meal smacking quietly of Emperors and missing clothes.

Timberyard

10 Lady Lawson Street, Edinburgh

(www.timberyard.co, 0131 221 1222)

Menu: Bewilderingly grim list of ingredients that one assumes are locally sourced or foraged, but contain no clue on what is to be done with them. 2/5

Atmosphere: Beautifully restored former warehouse. Extremely pleasant and comfortable yet with a refined buzz. For all its faults undoubtedly a destination. 5/5

Service: Staff are good-looking, well-schooled relaxed and only marked down because they are at the table incessantly. 4/5

Price: Stealthily expensive but that's the market it's aimed at. Bites are £6, desserts a tenner, mains top the £20 and there's another course to come. 4/5

Food: Flavours often forgotten in the rush to show off presumably locally sourced ingredients.Saved and marked up by two very good dishes amidst a sea of blandness. Flawed, food extremism but worth a visit. 7/10

TOTAL: 22/30