New Chapter

18 Eyre Place, Edinburgh

0131 556 0006

Lunch: £9.50-£15 Dinner: £25-£30

Food rating 8.5/10

WHAT can you buy for £9.50 these days? A paperback book and a bus fare? Two pairs of opaque tights? One LED lightbulb? In other words, not a whole fat lot, so you can instantly appreciate the appeal of New Chapter in Edinburgh. It has opened its doors offering an arresting two-course lunch menu for this sum, with a pannier of proper sourdough bread and butter thrown in. Not a stingy deal padded out with cheap carbs and low-effort buy-ins either. You get to choose from five good options for both starters and main courses. Several of these dishes involve fairly costly ingredients (buffalo mozzarella and chicory salad with Muscat grapes, Parma ham-wrapped cod), and some definite cooking skill. When we visited, there was only one supplement, a reasonable £2.50 for rump of lamb. As meat-eaters may have noticed, lamb is mysteriously expensive absolutely everywhere these days. If anyone can succinctly explain to me why, I’d love to know.

Lamb or no lamb, this menu is an undeniable bargain. Mind you, if you’re opening your doors in January you do need shock tactics to entice people out of their homes and distract them from midwinter preoccupations: self-improvement, weight loss, frugality, debt. Nevertheless, like the long-gone Pièrre Victoire (PV) empire that captivated diners with its £5 lunches, New Chapter may stir up a flurry of excitement. Indeed, I seem to remember that these same premises housed a PV restaurant. That such approachable prices appeal to customers is beyond doubt, but whether they are sustainable for restaurateurs long-term is another question. This might possibly be the cautionary lesson to be learned from the rapid rise and subsequent fall of the PV proposition. But for the time being, New Chapter is packing them in.

I can’t dispute New Chapter’s mission statement: “Serving quality, fresh, innovative Scottish and modern European food, always with a twist.” It’s quite accurate. Many upscale establishments would charge you £9.50 for my starter alone, a carefully made, savoury Pithiviers. With its flaky laminations, ridged and swirling like a snail’s shell, encasing moist morsels of braised venison, it tasted great and looked pretty as a picture at the centre of a roundel of celeriac purée that encircled purple beetroot cubes in their juices, under a bracelet of raw, white, slivered button mushrooms and pickled Enoki mushrooms. This pastry beat a starter of chicken liver paté hands down, even though you couldn’t really fault its rendition: smooth, blushing pink, not too in-your-face livery. Personally I could have done with a bigger glug of brandy in the paté, and I could take or leave the toasted brioche (I stuck to the sourdough) but couldn’t help being impressed by the accompanying tomato and onion chutney, a temperate, mild-mannered slump of fondant onions sharpened with tomato.

The pattern repeated with main courses: one more vivaciously interesting than the relatively pedestrian other. Parma ham-wrapped cod was a beauty to behold, plump, pearly fish succulent within its brittle cured meat crust, on a smoky, ham-pink stew of floury, round beans that looked to be of the Navarrico Alubias haricot variety. Fennel two ways (shaved raw and lemony, softly sautéed and soft), and the merest trace of basil emulsion, made this a mighty fine dish. It outshone the braised ox cheek, but then I’m not into the current fashion for shredding meat, reforming it, and then heating it again. However, this hard-working muscle had been slow-cooked into melting obedience. It was plainly meaty in a way that your great- great-granny would appreciate, and could have done with more of the promised Bourguignon jus, but with a chlorophyllic parsley and potato mash, and silky smooth cauliflower purée, most people would love it.

For an additional £3 a pop we got freshly humid mandarin cake with a lick of tart blood orange gel, a ball of reasonable chocolate orange ice cream, and a thin snake of chocolate pavé: essentially a gelatine-set mousse served with vanilla ice cream. You can’t quibble. New Chapter is bang on the money.