Great Places to Eat in Scotland
- Smoke Stack on the Water, Leith, Edinburgh
The Location
Smoke Stack on the Water in Leith, Edinburgh is the sister restaurant to the original Smoke Stack in the city centre on Broughton Street. The creation of the restaurant is an inspiring success story. The entrepreneurial owners of Smoke Stack are Lynn and Richard Forbes, a brother and sister team who first founded a contemporary bar and bistro, The Basement, on Broughton Street in the early 1990s. Then in 1996 they decided to diversify their business and opened the first Smoke Stack Chargrill restaurant just down the road from the Basement. The aim was to offer a menu of great steaks, burgers, seafood, salads, pasta and fajitas - all-round international cuisine to suit all tastes. The concept worked and in 2003 Smoke Stack on the Water opened, just off the Shore in Leith, a burgeoning, lively area to live and work, with good pubs, wine bars and restaurants.The Restaurant
The building is a former 18th century warehouse called Wisharts, which has been completely renovated to create a suite of offices, private modern apartments with Smoke Stack on the ground floor. Much of the original design has been left intact - huge timber carriage doors, brick floor, tall pillars, lime plaster terracotta-tinted walls and an open fireplace. Within this cavernous space across two large airy rooms (smoking and non smoking sections), contemporary furnishings, artwork and sculpture give the place light, colour and a unique atmosphere.
The Food
The diverse international menu created back in 1996 has proved so successful and popular there has been little change to the range of freshly prepared dishes with the speciality char-grilled steaks, burgers, chicken and seafood. Select your choice of rib eye, rump, sirloin and fillet steaks with a selection of sauces - blue cheese, Orkney cheddar and mustard or garlic butter. The burgers are 100% pure ground Scottish steak mince with various cheese, chilli and spicy toppings. Vegetarian burgers too.
Fish lovers can choose between chargrilled tuna steak served with lime mayonnaise, blackened salmon coated with Cajun herbs or [highly recommended] a King prawn kebab with peppers served with a lemon chilli sauce. All these dishes come with your choice of chips, salad, baked potato, new potatoes or basmati rice.
It is the flexibility of the menu which is particularly appealing so that you can order exactly the dish you would prefer, freshly cooked to order with your selection of accompaniments. The fat chunky chips are fabulous!
We began with the main part of the meal, so let's go back to the starters - again a wide selection to suit everyone's appetite and taste. What about a rich Cullen Skink - more of a hearty smoked haddock stew than soup - mussels, calamari, toasted goat's cheese, feta salad, mozzarella salad or smoked salmon [and there's more!].
Apart from the char-grill dishes, you'll find a full menu of pasta, crepes, fajitas and salads - such as Florentine crepes, filled with spinach and mushrooms in a Gruyere sauce, and a classic Tuna Nicoise salad. Puddings are equally tempting so indulge in Chocolate fudge cake, banoffie pie or Cointreau ice cream. The short wine list is carefully selected with witty descriptions on grape, texture and taste.
At lunchtime the menu offers an appetising choice similar to the dinner menu at lower prices as well as gourmet sandwiches such as B.L.T, steak and Mexican.
The Bill
Starters - around £4.00. Main course - Steaks, £13.95. Burgers, £6.50. Pasta/crepes, £7.95. Puddings, £3.50. House wine, £10.95.Conclusion
All in all expect a casual, easy going ambience, a roaring fire (on cold days), friendly staff - and generous portions of truly delicious, freshly prepared dishes, exactly as you ordered with whatever you wish on the side.Vivien Devlin
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