étain

étain‘s entrance is from a cobbled courtyard behind Princes Square, two floors up a private glass-doored lift, then along a corridor with windows giving sneak previews of the restaurant where we were to spend the next four hours in pleasurable munching.

After pre-dinner drinks in the comfy seats by the entrance, we sat at a table by the large windows overlooking the courtyard, and as Lisa is reading the latest Scarpetta novel, one of the conversational themes was based on the number of people from Princes Square who went out to put black bags into the dumpsters in the courtyard.

The food was up to the usual high standard of a restaurant that has been named AA Restaurant of the Year in Scotland 2005-06. My starter was an excellent ham and foie gras terrine that tasted the way old-fashioned ham should. Jacqueline found her smoked salmon, buckwheat blini and cream cheese a bit underwhelming.

Just after the plates were taken away, our friends Rob and Alison were shown to their table right next to ours. Small world!

For main course, I had venison with chocolate sauce that was mmm. Jacqueline had a roast partridge with cauliflower and curry veloute, that she thought was gorgeous. The lead shot added extra authenticity to the experience. However we all thought that Lisa’s risotto was one of the best we had ever tasted.

After a suitably long break we moved on to pudding. The star was my hot banana souffle with chocolate sorbet, which tasted just like when you barbecue bananas with a flake melted inside them. Jacqueline enjoyed her hazlenut fondant with praline ice cream.

We spent four hours over our meal, and it went really fast. Only a couple of minor niggles: service was a little erratic; and to cap it all, Rob and Alison got petit fours with their coffee and we didn’t! Overall it was a lovely meal and I would not hesitate to go back.