I can’t remember when I had a better lunch and certainly not one of this standard for the price. I think that’s what you call starting as you mean to go on.
Lunch at Norn, three courses for 20 quid with a choice of two dishes for each course, is an absolute steal.
Fizzing with originality, the menu still manages to emphasise taste and texture rather than novelty and each stage of the meal is executed with precision and obviously, a great deal of care.
Attention to detail is central to this exercise – everything is ultra-fresh, seasonal, painstakingly sourced and dictated by what can be done, imaginatively, with what is around on the day. It’s unlikely you’ll ever find two days’ menus featuring the same dishes, which could be frustrating until you realise that every dish is as good as the next one.
Norn, I assume, takes its name from Nordic mythology and there’s a pared down, back-to-essentials Scandi feel here that has nothing to do with austerity and everything to do with letting the flavours and ideas speak via skill and sympathy.
Here, I have to tell you that I have two cracking Top Tenuous connections to this place. One (very tenuous indeed) is that I once sang the role of Second Norn in Wagner’s epic opera Gotterdammerung – Norns, like certain restaurant critics, being goddesses of fate who hold the destiny of both gods and men in their keeping.
The other, not quite so tenuous, is that chef-patron Scott Smith, formerly of The Peat Inn and Collinson’s in Broughty Ferry, once came to my house and cooked a wonderful meal for the eight discerning members of the West End Ladies Wine Group. We’ve never forgotten it, so you can imagine how chuffed I was when I heard that Scott and his brigade of young and talented colleagues had opened up in what was the former premises of The Plumed Horse in Leith.
From the cool, slightly noisy setting of the spacious dining area, you can see right into the open kitchen where there were no fewer than half a dozen chefs hard at work, with four front-of-house staff.
Perhaps that’s why the service is so good. And the chefs themselves, responsible for each course, bring it out and present it, giving you the low down in this high-end food. The menu describes the ingredients, basically; the chefs tell you what they’ve done with it.
With three of us meeting for lunch, two of us chose the starter of smoked haddock, artichoke and sorrel, this accurate but unvarnished description giving no hint of the clever combining of yielding chunks of fish and crispy, wafer-thin artichoke rounds.
“How can fish like this be cooked so lightly yet still melt in the mouth?” my friend wondered, as he and my husband demolished their good-sized portions with a will.
Even the bread here is something special, baked on the premises and containing Orkney beremeal which makes the loaf itself both light and full of flavour, and the dark crust just delicious. They even whip and carefully culture the butter with the addition of buttermilk. And if you think that couldn’t possibly make much difference, boy, would you be wrong.
They don’t stint on amounts, either – we were offered a second helping of bread automatically and it disappeared like snow aff a dyke.
My starter of beetroot, squash and crowdie came in a bowl with an almost meaty-tasting beetroot sauce/jus/gravy and a plump cushion of the crimson vegetable, sliced amazingly thinly, wrapped round the caramelised butternut squash and melting soft cheese, with little roundels of pickled beetroot to add zing. Gorgeous to look at and to taste.
Mains were the husband’s hake (with leek, kale and dulse, packed with perfectly-matched sea-borne flavours) and the prosaically described chicken, cabbage, potato and cress for my friend and I. This was a chicken triumph, poached, then roasted for an amazing level of juiciness, doing more than justice to what was obviously a very carefully sourced fowl.
My husband swapped the proffered puddings for the cheese selection (usually carrying an £8 supplement if you have it as well as the dessert but only £4 if it’s instead of). Four types, including Mull cheddar and Cashel blue were served with intriguingly gingery pickled crab apples and rye crisp bread.
The pal and I had apple, pear, honey and walnut which came duded up in the form of a wonderful creamy honey ice cream, shards of crisp and juicy fruit, and a foam (which I normally can’t be doing with) of home-made cider which brought appley-ness to a new level.
A bottle of rich and savoury Ciello Rosso nero d’avola came in at £22. The wine list is pricey but there are some interesting and unusual names on it and there are several options by the glass.
Coffee – French press style, served with creamy sweet home-made tablet, was a fiver for two, and plenty of it there was, too.
I refer you back to my opening sentence and can only add that I am booking up for the evening tasting menu (four or seven courses) PDQ.
Price: lunch (served Thurs, Fri & Sat), three courses £20.
Food: 10/10
Menu: 10/10
Service: 10/10
Value: 10/10
Atmosphere: 9/10
Total: 49/50
Norn,
50-54 Henderson Street,
Leith,
Edinburgh EH6 6DE
0131 629 2525
Contact: www.nornrestaurant.com
T: 0131 629 2525
