Edinburgh isn’t short of good restaurants, but many of them fall into the two camps of casual vs fine dining, with a chasm in between for people looking for beautiful food in a more relaxed setting. Fhior answers the call in all of its composed glory.
Here you’ll find a carefully considered, chic dining room that’s a lesson in the Scandi-Scot aesthetic. Design details veer away from starched linen and head instead towards pine tables, jars of ferments and interesting, handmade crockery and cutlery.
Don’t get too comfy, you’re going to have to accept that chef Scott Smith isn’t someone who thinks like the rest of us. Instead, his cookery of each course will elicit intrigue, spark conversation about the combinations and at times challenge you - which for anyone truly interested in gastronomy is a gift.
Over three or so hours the courses kept coming, accompanied by expertly matched wines and delivered by the kind of front of house team who have taken the time to study the art of service. To sum up so many parts succinctly is impossible, but there were some highlights. Hash brown canapes with black garlic and kohlrabi. A lightly pickled beetroot dish was bright pink all over and served with a prawn head emulsion that was so rich and punchy it needed the acidity from the vegetables. A mesmerisingly good cheese course that is now somewhat of a signature: a little cheese bake with a sharp pickled onion gel. In fact, perhaps it's Smith’s clever use of acidity that makes his menu feel so alive.
It’s not to say that everything was universally loved; there was a goat’s cheese dessert hybrid with a vegetable molasses that tasted so overwhelmingly earthy it conjured up compost for us. But it was interesting and innovative and not unpleasant, just bemusing, which in its own way is quite fun.
Whichever way you cut it, Fhior is a restaurant you should experience at least once. It’s everything that modern fine dining should be: fun, lively, interesting and ultimately very, very delicious.