This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to Edinburgh
Stuart Ralston is one of Scotland’s best-known chefs. His diverse portfolio of restaurants has attracted flocks of fans and wooed critics (he can lay claim to half of Edinburgh’s Bib Gourmands, among other accolades). Some may know him from the telly, too: Ralston has represented the Saltire in two seasons of the Great British Menu competition show, firmly planting his flag as one of the country’s most exciting culinary talents.
When word spread last year that he planned to take over the site of the late Paul Kitching’s 21212 restaurant on Royal Terrace — and that it would be his most ambitious project yet — expectations were high, to say the least. Lyla was one of Edinburgh’s most hotly anticipated restaurant openings in, well, ever. It was worth the hype.
The 28-cover restaurant offers an exquisite taste of Scotland in one of the most elegant dining rooms in the capital. Lyla’s seafood-focused menu showcases line-caught fish and sustainably sourced shellfish from around the Scottish isles, alongside organic meats and seasonal vegetables from small-scale farmers and foragers — each dish crafted with Ralston’s skilful cookery and confident restraint.
“Sourcing the produce is a big passion for me,” he says. “I like to think that the food is always quite organic, that I don’t manipulate too much and keep the flavour profiles to one or two things. There’s a sort of simplicity in a lot of it, backed by different amounts of technique.”
The 41-year-old Ralston has been sharpening his technical skills for decades, compiling a CV that looks like a greatest hits album. He hails from a family of chefs — including his parents and both of his brothers — and was exposed to professional kitchens at an early age, when his mum and dad put their boys to work as kitchen porters when they were in their teens.
Ralston progressed to the kitchens of Greywalls Hotel and Inverlochy Castle, both run by the late Albert Roux and his son Michel Roux Jr. He’s had stints in New York working for Gordon Ramsay and at the erstwhile three-star Jean-Georges. But it was when he took a role at L’Acajou, the fine dining restaurant at Sandy Lane in Barbados, that he began to discover his own style of food. “I wanted more control and eventually thought the best thing I could do was work for myself,” he says of his decision to return to Scotland.
He opened his first Edinburgh restaurant, Aizle, in 2015, offering a surprise tasting menu based around Scotland’s seasonal produce and infused with a touch of Japanese knowhow. It was an immediate hit. Ralston has since emerged as one of the UK’s most exciting and intriguing chefs, and now operates a blossoming empire of four restaurants — all unique in style, and all in Edinburgh.
There’s Noto, a wine-forward small-plates restaurant influenced by his time in New York, and Tipo, a chic, casual Italian named after the “00” flour used for making pasta, and inspired by his growing family. “We’ve got two kids,” he says. “I was like, ‘where do you eat with children that’s not shite?’”
What does Ralston wants guests to go to Lyla for? “I really hope people come with the expectation of potentially having one of the best meals they’ve ever had.”
Service at Lyla begins in the first-floor drawing room, where several jewel-like canapés arrive to be enjoyed with an aperitif or a selection from the champagne trolley, which leans towards growers (and Krug, naturally). As a sparkling-wine nerd, I am delighted to try a rare 100 per cent Pinot Meunier rosé champagne.
The evening continues in the sophisticated ground-floor dining room that features high ornamental ceilings, herringbone flooring and white tablecloths, which are often eschewed nowadays in favour of creating a more relaxed environment, but Lyla is “unashamedly fine dining”, Ralston says.
With the open kitchen in full view, we start what is ostensibly a 10-course tasting menu (£165). The langoustine — so delicious and deceptively simple in its execution — is, at its heart, fish and chips. Ralston often applies a Japanese twist to Scottish produce and comfort foods, and the shellfish is wrapped in stringy kataifi pastry, then flash-fried like tempura. It also comes with a burnt-apple purée to mimic how it is traditionally served in Edinburgh. “On the east coast, where I come from, when you have fish and chips you have ‘brown sauce’ with it, and it’s usually really vinegary,” Ralston says. (It’s an issue of national culinary divide: the rest of the country eats them with vinegar.) “That was a big inspiration for the dish.”
Japanese influences come to the fore more intensely in Ralston’s chawanmushi, a steamed egg custard, which he makes with potato foam and smoked trout. “It’s meant to comfort you and is very humble,” Ralston says, though it’s luxuriousness belies its alleged modesty, as the flavours of each ingredient sing in perfect harmony — salty soy, umami and smoke. “It’s like Cullen skink in a sense,” he says, referencing the traditional smoked haddock soup. “So it’s very Scottish, although very Japanese.”
More extravagant produce follows — turbot, caviar, wagyu — but it’s the cheffy magic conjured with lowlier ingredients that are the most fun. My favourite was a little bowl of silky pumpkin soup — a meek gourd made gorgeous in deft hands.
There’s a lightness to the cooking at Lyla — Ralston avoids using heavy starches, so guests do not feel grossly full or overly indulgent — and no one needs to be shoved into the taxi home (though after the exceptional wine pairing, crafted by the award-winning sommelier Stuart Skea, we are certainly stumbling into it).
“I really think about the progression of the menu and how things are eaten, how heavy things are, and what we have had before — we try not to repeat anything,” says Ralston. “Hopefully, each of the dishes that you have, whether it’s a snack or a dessert, has its own personality and characteristics. Hopefully, everything here just stands out.”
Opening times: Wednesday–Thursday, 7pm–8pm (last booking); Friday–Saturday, 12.30pm–1.30pm (last booking) and 7pm–8pm (last booking). 3 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh EH7 5AB; lylaedinburgh.co.uk
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