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.