ESFW – Holyrood Kitchen

The Year of Food & Drink is in full flow, with barely a week going by without an event, a launch or a social media happening. Having been at the Treasured Tastes launch earlier in the week, it was lovely to note that an invitation that had been in the diary for a little while was coming around on Friday.

The Edinburgh School of Food and Wine, with chef Chris Stewart at the helm, had been planning a bespoke dining event to showcase local projects for a little while. Chris shouted out to the Scran Salon crowd for ideas for their favourite suppliers to be featured. With the event finalised, it was lovely of Chris to invite us along to check it out.

I was joined on this enterprise by Eleanor, who has recently been celebrating the acquisition of a rather fabulous new job, and who had previously quested to the Hidden Wing.

The venue for tonight’s extravaganza was the Holyrood Park Education Centre, just behind the palace. It was a slightly curious space, but shown to best advantage in simple settings as we sat along long, communal tables. The view across Arthur’s Seat was quite breathtaking.

The menu had been published prior to the event and was almost overflowing with great local produce. We were both excited to dig in.

Once we had taken our seats, and Chris had introduced the evening, first up was a starter of Great Glen Charcuterie venison bresaola, with the Little Herb Farm’s vinegar used to lightly pickle Craigie’s Farm summer vegetables, then Plant and Grow micro cress topping things off.

This was a well-balanced dish, with all the elements harmoniously collaborating for pleasing mouthfuls. It looked plenty pretty, too.

The main course had Plan Bee honey to the fore with their mead used in the braising of the Northwood wild boar. Their truffled honey across both the veg and meat brought a lovely earthy sweetness to proceedings.

The quavers were very reminiscent of the lovely crispy pork skin served at Ting Thai Caravan. The boar was served on a bed of deliciously buttery mash.

Our dessert maintained the excellent standard with Newliston Estate strawberry curd, gin macerated strawberries, Krakatoa meringue and Plant and Grow micro basil.

The strawberries were entirely booze-soaked to the point of near collapse, and the curd was decidedly moreish. The texture of the meringues was a lovely contrast to the goo of the other elements.

We rounded things out with Miss Integritea infusions and a “tipsy hat” petit four. This was an elegant treat that drew things to a very accomplished conclusion.

Throughout the evening, we had an opportunity to meet with and chat to the providers of the rich bounty of ingredients that we’d sampled. It was lovely to see so many familiar faces, along people new to me, such as Mandy from Plant to Grow and Michelle from the Little Herb Farm.

This event runs for two sittings on 9 May, with a few tickets still remaining. We’d strongly recommend it to you. If you can’t make it along this time, keep an eye out for future events on the ESFW website.