I’ve been leading a rather jet set life recently, Edinburgh last week, Berlin this - quite the euro traveller! I have, of course, been eating well in these cities (having locals in both locations meant I was mostly spoiled for great food). I’ll post about Berlin later, first things first, Edinburgh.

The charming Caledonian sleeper brought me to this magnificent city, cold but quite, quite beautiful. George st (parallel to the infamous Prince st) is full of restaurants housed in grand old bank halls - and when they do grand in Edinburgh, they really do grand. In the single evening I was there I was treated to a quite decent example - Centotre (www.centotre.com).

The space is vast and hugely white, but the potential starkness is toned by lots of soft touches (plants, coloured lights that dance on the high, high ceiling) but it is stil really white.

The menu is simple, just two pages of dishes, showing a measured hand in the kitchen. The wine list, however, is plenty long at another 4 pages…

After filling up on some very good bread and olives (a bit unsure what the silverskin onions were doing in the mix, but otherwise very nice), my dining companion and I both chose red main course dishes. I’m not sure if this was to balance the whiteness of the place, could be. She had meatball tagliatelle and I a fish stew. While both looked fantastic on the plate (I knew that red would work) neither really came up to better than just good, the meatballs were a tiny bit bland, the tomato sauce not quite sharp enough, and my seafood was just a bit too fishy - maybe caught 48 hours ago rather than 24.

The meal was certainly no disaster - especially as its occasion was two old friends catching up over a bottle of wine - and the puddings were so huge and fun filled that we certainly left with a smile on our faces. My, sensible, companion opted for a simple and zesty lemon sorbet. I, however, went all out. This marvelous concoction (see right) was only really made possible by the lack of carbs in the rest of my meal, otherwise I might have actually exploded. It was made of excellent home made vanilla ice cream covered in Amarena cherries, toffee brittle, fresh pineapple and whipped cream. The oddness of the combination was what compelled me to try it, and sweet sticky fun it was too.

So all in all a more than acceptable meal, but I didn’t feel it ever quite reached the promised heights of that bank hall ceiling…

3.5/5

Mains £8-24
Pudding £4-6
House Wine £15

Centotre
103 George St,
Edinburgh
0131 225 1550

www.centotre.com