I would have died happy after meal at Kitchin

We’d been waiting months on our reservation at The Kitchin in Edinburgh and our first dining experience at an eatery which has earned a Michelin Star finally arrived amid much excitement, trepidation even.

Since gaining a star in 2007, just a year after it opened, celebrity chef Tom Kitchin and wife Michaela’s place has won a string of awards. And it’s easy to see why it was given the ‘best restaurant experience’ nod by the Thistle Awards last year.

The opulent restaurant is in a converted whisky warehouse on the cobbled streets of Leith’s reinvigorated waterfront.

Somehow it’s roomy and cosy and intimate at the same time with a trendy and inoffensive colour scheme featuring earthy shades of blues, greys and creams blended into the steel girders and stone work of the original warehouse in a fusion of modernity and heritage.

The food is modern British cuisine influenced by French cooking techniques using seasonal Scottish produce. It is indeed a fantastic experience I highly recommend – just make sure it’s after pay day though as it doesn’t come cheap.

We had already decided to go for the surprise tasting menu, which was £80 each, along with the wine package at £55 each. This also includes a glass of champagne.

The tasting menu is seven petite courses, plus petit fours, and a different wine for each dish. A French sommelier talks you through each wine and why it accompanies the dish as it is served.

First up was a carrot velouté with lime, ginger and apple followed by razor clams from the Isle of Barra, served in a long shell with intrinsically diced vegetables and chorizo with a wild herb sauce.

Hand-dived Orkney scallops were next and were baked in the shell, which was shucked by the waiter at your table and wrapped in a supremely light pastry, with a creamy white wine and wild herb sauce – the same as the razor clam sauce as far as I could tell.

Next up was boned and rolled pig’s head with roasted tail of langoustine from Tobermory and a crispy ear salad. Then there was lamb, a selection of new season Highland lamb with roasted artichoke, raw artichoke and black olive with lovely rich red sauce.

The palette is then cleansed with an orange sea buckthorn sorbet on a bed of apple balls in juice with tiny meringues on a crisp bed on the side.

And the pièce de résistance is a super soft apple crumble soufflé with a smooth vanilla ice cream.

I don’t have room to describe each and every dish in detail unfortunately so you’ll just have to settle for my word that everything was truly perfect, absolutely delicious.

The service is impeccable, well almost. The waiters were what I can only describe as mind-reading ninjas who would appear from nowhere to clear your table and get you exactly what you were thinking you wanted.

However, due to a mix-up in communication, I believe, we weren’t served our petit fours which, in hindsight is a disappointment, but not one that ruined the evening in any way, shape or form.

This place is awesome.

The Kitchin, 78 Commercial Quay, Edinburgh, 0131 555 1755