The Atrium

Cambridge St, Edinburgh

23/01/09

Edinburgh restaurants come and go, but the Atrium remains extraordinarily consistent and committed to cooking food properly, which cannot be said for all its competitors. They have binned their tent and torch decor, and the new solid ceiling is wrong I think--it makes the room seem smaller as do the blanked in windows.

They are evidently feeling credit crunched as they have a 3 courses for £20 menu which is unbelievably good value. To make this even remotely profitable for them they use some cheap because unfashionable ingredients and tonight turned out some real triumphs. There are 3 choices per course. I had a fish cake with some indeterminable fish bulked out with vegetables. I have to say it wasn't that lovely flaky kind of fishcake but it was tasty, light and pretty nice. Then mutton hotpot which was a real test of a good restaurant. It was hard to say what was different from the same dish I had for school dinners, but it was wonderful. The meat was melting and delicious and the vegetables the same. The whole thing just tasted distinctly hotpotty ... but better. For pudding I had a creme brulee which a bit odd--with a kind of liquid base more like a creme caramel but with a slightly fermented note. I don't know what that was, Creme brulee itself was fine and came with some perfect macaroons so light they almost floated off.

They have produced a couple of new house wines for this menu at about £15 which are very well chosen. All this comes with good bread, an amuse bouche of a well flavoured ham and barley soup, attentive service. Any resident of Edinburgh who does not get themselves to the Atrium before this offer runs out is missing out on the best deal in town.