Lyla

The Good Food Guide — Exceptional

The line between experience and ordeal is a boundary routinely tested by the modern tasting menu. When the format soars, as it does here, it can be like a symphony. A recent addition to chef-patron Stuart Ralston’s Edinburgh mini-empire, Lyla occupies the townhouse site of the late Paul Kitching’s 21212. A profound sense of occasion lives on, and the standard of service is unimpeachable throughout as the team delivers Ralston's signature 10-course experience. Guests are swept upstairs to a beautifully appointed drawing room for Champagne and canapés, which may include an immaculately presented lobster croustade – a masterful balance of crisp, buttery pastry, sweet crustacean flesh and ruby cod’s roe. Expectations set, an enthusiastic introduction follows via the towering, glass-fronted ageing fridges. Downstairs, a sumptuous dining room awaits, blending into an entirely open kitchen at the rear. Bright linens against contrasting, dark drapes and precise, warm lighting give a calm, welcoming intimacy, with a stage-like view of the serene culinary theatrics occurring nearby. To begin, a single, glorious langoustine is a fat thumb of perfectly sweet flesh, bound in golden threads of kataifi pastry, beautifully balanced by a tart apple ketchup and a salty hit of dried scallop roe. After that, a technically meticulous squid dish arrives masquerading as noodle soup – the flesh dried and pressed before being cut to fine ribbons and drenched in a dark, decadent alium broth. Desserts are equally impressive, and a closing salvo marries a thin, slightly saline, cherry-laced chocolate sponge with a sublimely fresh, bright meadowsweet ice cream. Again, the balance is impeccable, the result utterly sublime. The star turn, however, is the duck, which we meet briefly before the now-bronzed creature is snatched away for carving. What returns is a flawless crescendo of a dish. The meat is pink and staggeringly succulent, the fat perfectly rendered, and the salty-sweet shard of cross-hatched skin tangy with plum from relentless basting, while a sunflower XO sauce delivers an elegant umami hit. It is scintillating, laborious and exacting to an almost absurd level, and a masterclass in anticipation. Needless to say, the option of pricey matched wines is a given, though the wine list is well thought out and offers some degree of affordability. While some restaurants feel like a step on a journey to something more, this feels like Ralston’s destination. In Lyla, he has arrived at somewhere spectacular.

National Restaurant Awards — 33

Opened in 2023, Stuart Ralston’s flagship restaurant is within the space that was once home to the late Paul Kitching’s influential 21212. He has big shoes to fill, then, but is more than qualified for the job with a CV that includes working for Gordon Ramsay in New York. The Glenrothes-born chef is already a familiar face on Edinburgh’s restaurant scene having launched his debut solo restaurant Aizle in 2014 and followed up with the more casual but still fairly high-end Noto and Tipo. The 28-cover Lyla is billed by Ralston as ‘unapologetically fine dining’. The meal begins in a slick upstairs drawing room that features a Krug-branded champagne trolley, a large lighting installation and meat and fish ageing fridges stocked with homemade charcuterie and top quality seafood. The main restaurant area beneath has been completely overhauled. The look is calm and elegant with design details including crisp white tablecloths, grey velvet-upholstered chairs and sconces that cast a dramatic lighting pattern onto the walls. Lyla is not a fish restaurant per se but is fish-focused, with the majority of the courses on its tasting menu seafood based. With just 10 tables to worry about (and a maximum party size of four), Ralston has been able to up the culinary ante significantly - his previous flagship Aizle had 50 covers - delivering picture-perfect dishes that demonstrate good technique while still allowing his high-quality ingredients to do the talking.

National Restaurant Awards — Best Restaurant in Scotland

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