A 'burning ember' in Scots, Aizle is a beacon of star dining where the tasting menu makes the difficult choices for you Ten years is a long time in restaurants, particularly in Edinburgh where trends can change as quickly as a cold easterly whipping around corners. Aizle opened in 2014 on St Leonards Street, the first solo venture for chef Stuart Ralston and his wife Krystal. In what was then a revolutionary move there was no menu, just a list of ingredients chalked up on a board.
Inventive dishes arrived tasting menu-style, changing with the seasonal ingredients, keeping diners guessing. In that small restaurant over six years ago I ate a glorious meal I still vividly remember, including a sheep’s milk agnolotti with wild leeks, which is forever my pasta barometer. No pressure then for the much overdue return visit.
Once a meal began with a starter. Today the greedy diner also gets snacks: an edible opening gambit. With a damson kombucha we’re brought three morsels: a light chickpea panisse with crowdie and pumpkin in XO sauce; a celeriac and elderberry tart with roast onion jelly, and my personal show-stopper, a delicate beetroot tartlet, filled with a rich and salty trout belly mousse, topped with a sliver of radish and trout roe.
There’s bread too: a sticky soft brioche glazed with forest honey, served with a lovage, parsley and chervil butter, a bright wasabi green. We’re off to a very strong start. In 2020 Aizle relocated to ‘The Garden Room’ at Kimpton Char.