Bridge Inn
27 Baird Street, Ratho
0131 333 1320
Lunch/Dinner £5-40
Food rating 9/10
THE most colourful way to approach the Bridge Inn at Ratho would be to sail up to its jetty on the Union Canal. Cycling or walking along the towpath would be a more energetic option. By a whisker, the inn is still in Edinburgh (postcode EH28), and as its website "contact" page points out, "Lothian bus 20 comes directly to the door". I am charmed to find that the folks at the Bridge Inn begin their travel tips with public transport. It all adds to my Mill On The Floss sentiment about the setting of the Bridge Inn, a canalside equivalent of The Railway Children that represents comforting continuity, real or imagined, with recreational days spent outdoors in a state of childhood innocence. On a practical point, the inn does have a large car park and is only a few minutes' drive from Edinburgh airport, but don't let that puncture the romance.
The inn's food philosophy seems to refer back to a golden age, when horticulture was a thriving occupation and agriculture had not yet become an industry. It promises 35-day hung beef, locally-shot game, and a head chef, Ben, who works with and "our gardener Charlie" to put "the freshest food on your plate, often the same day it was picked".
There is sufficient detail to suggest that these assurances are more than mere marketing: this must be one of the few pubs in Scotland that actually employs its own gardener. "Our walled garden, 200 yards along the canal towpath, produces the freshest seasonal vegetables throughout the year. We grow our own carrots, potatoes, leeks, spinach, cabbages, salad leaves and much more. Our own apples and rhubarb are used in our crumble - even our own nettles, delicious in our homemade nettle soup. We breed our own saddleback pigs, who live outside in the fresh air and are looked after by all the family. This year we also have our own lamb." The Bridge Inn also serves eggs from its free-range hens and ducks, but the piéce de résistance is its "from our garden this week" list, which when we visited featured salad leaves, stripy and golden beetroot, carrots, Anya potatoes, and parsnips.
In parts, the Bridge Inn is a proper old pub: idiosyncratic with a sprawling, low-beamed layout of various small rooms and nooks, one with a log fire. The restaurant is a swish add-on that looks out to the inn's terrace over the canal. I can't really fault the food at the Bridge Inn, either in its conception or in its execution, although to my taste, some of our dishes were slightly plain. A little fresh rosemary would have lifted the lamb plate, which was otherwise a neatly presented and competently cooked line-up of rump, rack, and "stovied" shank. The latter could have done with more fat and onions, but the kale was sheer joy: vivid green, free from water, and positively silky in its salty, buttery sheen. How lovely to see a vegetable being honoured and cooked to show its potential. The pork plate - belly, crackling, cured ham-wrapped loin and unctuous confit - would have been more interesting with a hint of ground fennel, the odd anchovy, a whisper of garlic, or a strand or two of lemon zest, but I loved its dainty white beans, which were astringent and sweet with tomato.
Portions here are huge, and the rich, smoky, velvety Cullen Skink (a star rendition of the classic dish with all elements in perfect ratio and harmony) would easily constitute lunch, as would the peppery, succulent pigeon breast upon its throne of golden-fried polenta, lubricated with sticky red wine jus.
I'd have preferred the lemon verbena posset to taste more assertively of the fragrant herb, but it slipped down a treat, and somehow, my "just one spoonful" of glorious vanilla-stippled rice pudding, satiny with cream and bejewelled with golden raisins, turned into several.
The Bridge Inn was fully booked when I called - the secret is out about the food here - so we ate in a corner of the bar, but happily, the restaurant menu is served throughout.
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