It's not often I get to say it, but for LYLA I feel it is fully justified: This is a restaurant with one Michelin star that is currently operating well above that level.
On a daytrip this weekend to Edinburgh, I visited LYLA, by Calton Hill, which opened on the former 21212 site in late 2023 (a restaurant I visited just before it lost its Michelin star; no surprises there). LYLA was awarded its star earlier this year, being the latest and most 'haute' dining restaurant by head chef Stuart Ralston in the city (who also has Aizle – which opened in 2014 – and later additions Noto and Tipo, both of which are casual spots).
Seafood-led and often with a japanese twist (like the miso in the scallop dish that really makes it sing, the chawanmushi, and a whole host of endemic ingredients), LYLA's menu is hit after hit. Starting strong both quality and flavour intensity-wise, the first appetizer is their take on a cheese and onion roll, which is followed swiftly by a delicate tartlet of aged Bluefin tuna from Cornwall, and then sake-marinated lobster that rounds out the time spent in the bar. As has become quite common, there are two dining spaces, the first being the lounge-cum-bar where the appetizers are served, the second being the dining room a level below.
The appetizers are all refined, but the real magic happens in the main dining room. The langoustine is an incredibly rich, decadent take on scampi using kadayif (shredded filo pastry), with a burnt apple dip that explodes on the palette. The crumpet is a wonderful choice to soak up the delicious sauce and all else that is left from the wagyu dish. The chocolate dessert looks as though it could do without the caramel whisky sauce, but then you try it again and think 'damn, they're right'. The petits fours are not afterthoughts like most, but are superb in their own right, a final celebratory flourish of chocolate, pastille and sponge. And, arguably the star of the whole show, the scallop dish is a perfect mix of acid and umami, the scallop itself being left to caramelize on the barbeque on one side before being flipped and heated quickly on the other side to allow for a gradation of wellness as you cut through.
There are some things I would change (the veal sweetbread is superfluous but not detrimental, so flip a coin on that one; a wafer would suit the cheese course better than the cracker provided, given the latter being thin and brittle, and altogether none-to-enjoyable to scoop cheese onto), but these are really minor things that result in a couple of the dishes not being quite as exemplary as the majority.
Overall, if LYLA continues at this level then I really don't see why they would go without a second star next year. It would be something of a travesty, but then stranger things have happened at sea (or, as it happens, in the Michelin guide).
Courses:
- Alp blossom cheese, onion, quince
- Bluefin tuna, nori, koshu
- Lobster, kohlrabi, sake
- Cured halibut, candied kelp, umai caviar
- Langoustine, burnt apple
- Chawanmushi, north sea crab, white kombu
- Laminated brioche, ampersand, koji and wild garlic butter
- Squid, onion, pepper dulse
- Hand-dived scallop, N25 caviar, sauce choron (pictured first)
- Wagyu, asparagus, nasturtium with sides of veal sweetbread and crumpet
- Laganory cheese, hibiscus & flowered lavosh
- Yorkshire rhubarb, custard
- Xoco chocolate, pear, whisky
- Petits fours – Malt dulcey bon bon, kelp & white chocolate financier, rum canelé & pumpkin, Paloma pâte de fruit
by MaaDFoXX