61 High Street,
Edinburgh
0131 557 0330
Style: Casual/ upmarket hybrid
Food: Contemporary Scottish
Price: £20 for two courses
Wheelchair access: Yes
Gentlemen, take note! If you plan to wine and dine your young lady on Valentine's Day, don't do as I did in the run up to my recent wedding anniversary. To give up alcohol for the month before your big night out might seem like a good idea at the time. The love of your life will be impressed at your dedication, commitment and healthy restraint. She might even find your monk-like self-denial a bit of a turn-on.
She will, however, be unimpressed if, as a result of your abstinence, the first splash of liquor to pass your lips turns you to jelly. I pass this advice on not because I was dancing on the tables after ending my drink-free January in Monteiths - though any gaps in my account can be explained by a certain fuzziness - but because few drinks have ever hit me like that first gin and tonic. Perhaps not as powerful as the childhood sip of wine that emboldened me to tell Great Aunty Lilly I didn't like her wallpaper, but dizzying all the same.
Fortunately, I managed to stay seated on the towering plastic bar stool as we waited for our table to be ready - a feat beyond my wife, who kept sliding off hers even without the influence of alcohol. Not a great example of seat design, but chairs are a bit of a thing here. Scan the half-dozen tables and it's hard to find two that are alike. In some places this would be chaotic; at Monteiths it is artful.
It also gives you the chance to settle in whichever corner you feel most comfortable. The low table reserved for us, next to the bookcase, fake fire and the modernist stag's head, had two large leather armchairs to sit on.
All very comfortable, but not ideal for digesting. The minute we moved to a more conventional table, however, a good-looking couple took our place. They must have been eyeing it up covetously and it felt good to have done them a service. It is, after all, the cosy table any serious Valentiner should seek.
What's intriguing about Monteiths is its adaptability. It's only small, but it has the capacity to be both a sophisticated restaurant and a jolly pub.
We weren't the only ones tucking into a fancy three-course dinner, yet we might equally have ended up with the crowd of post-conference workers in their salesman suits choosing from the formidable line-up of Russian vodka and Scottish malts. Apparently it becomes more pub than grub on busy Saturday nights.
We kicked off with a cauliflower soup and confit of duck, while drinking a fruity Casa La Joya Merlot from Chile a sip at a time (it goes straight to my head, you know). The soup was thick and rounded, deliciously offset with a dollop of chestnut puree and a dash of olive oil. With its accompanying shredded carrot salad, the duck was presented equally attractively though, wrapped in rice paper rolls, it turned out to be a tad fiddly to eat.
My grilled potato gnocchi looked so beautiful it was a shame to disturb it, the crispy gnocchi sitting in a vibrant orange sauce of slow-roasted tomato with spinach and dolcelatte for contrast. It tasted good, too, as did the monkfish tail recommended by the waiter. This was fresh and well cooked, served with crispy Parma ham, succulent spring onion mash and a rich buttery sauce. We didn't really have room for the side order of chips and roasted veg which, in any case, were underwhelming compared with the confidently produced main courses.
By this time the wine was taking its effect, though I knew I wasn't as far gone as the frisky party of salespeople. A bracing espresso kept me focused for a tangy apple and bramble crumble, served with a glass of creme anglaise, while my wife enjoyed an Irish cream creme brulee. Returning to the High Street beneath the pretty corridor of bamboo and fairy lights, the impression that love was in the air followed us home.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article