The Honours is Martin Wishart's new Edinburgh brasserie and has already opened to much praise from the online community. In Edinburgh, Chef Wishart is revered as a food god and why not, he gave the city its first Michelin star back in 2001. His fine dining restaurant in Leith (Restaurant Martin Wishart) remains one of the country's most well thought of establishments and when we visited it in November of last year, we considered our meal to be easily at the two star standard. We've been advocates of Martin Wishart ever since.
The menu at The Honours is described on their website to be 'where traditional French cuisine meets the flavours of the Scottish market' and yet looking at the menu, this seems perhaps a touch heavy on marketing spin. A quick glance sees Oysters that are sourced only from Cornwall, Jamon Bellota from Spain, and Caponata, a Scicilian dish no less, which is all fine but Paris meets Scotland? Really?
There is though much that appeals on the menu and for starters, we order the Crab Chowder, and a Swiss cheese souffle. The crab chowder was too smooth to warrant the name we felt and we couldn't help agree with Joanna Blythman's review in The Guardian where she said of the dish 'half crab bisque, half bouillabaisse, it certainly wasn't a hearty textured chowder'.
The Swiss cheese souffle with spinach and bechamel has the potential to be a show stopping dish but here it too falls short. Admittedly, our base line comparison is the height of cheese souffle greatness, that served by Le Gavroche, a souffle offering head spinning indulgence delivered by the remarkable coming together of souffle textures, cheese and cream. Here, they delivered something that was good, but never reaching a peak of brilliance, clear cheese flavours, but never indulgent cheese flavours and a texture that was a little on the heavy side to be considered a great dish.
This too seems like a good place to discuss service. While The Honours has been open almost two months now, much of the service seemed awkward and unsure. We were not offered an aperitif until a good 10-15 minutes after we had been seated. Then, when ordering food, I asked for a glass of white with my starter and a glass of red with my main. The white had failed to arrive by the time the starter was cleared from the table such that I then asked them not to bring it. We were also surprised as we waited for our mains that when the newly arrived table next to us were given their menus, their waiter reeled off a list of the day's specials, since our waitress had failed to mention there were specials period; it would have been nice to know.
The menu at The Honours is described on their website to be 'where traditional French cuisine meets the flavours of the Scottish market' and yet looking at the menu, this seems perhaps a touch heavy on marketing spin. A quick glance sees Oysters that are sourced only from Cornwall, Jamon Bellota from Spain, and Caponata, a Scicilian dish no less, which is all fine but Paris meets Scotland? Really?
There is though much that appeals on the menu and for starters, we order the Crab Chowder, and a Swiss cheese souffle. The crab chowder was too smooth to warrant the name we felt and we couldn't help agree with Joanna Blythman's review in The Guardian where she said of the dish 'half crab bisque, half bouillabaisse, it certainly wasn't a hearty textured chowder'.
The Swiss cheese souffle with spinach and bechamel has the potential to be a show stopping dish but here it too falls short. Admittedly, our base line comparison is the height of cheese souffle greatness, that served by Le Gavroche, a souffle offering head spinning indulgence delivered by the remarkable coming together of souffle textures, cheese and cream. Here, they delivered something that was good, but never reaching a peak of brilliance, clear cheese flavours, but never indulgent cheese flavours and a texture that was a little on the heavy side to be considered a great dish.
This too seems like a good place to discuss service. While The Honours has been open almost two months now, much of the service seemed awkward and unsure. We were not offered an aperitif until a good 10-15 minutes after we had been seated. Then, when ordering food, I asked for a glass of white with my starter and a glass of red with my main. The white had failed to arrive by the time the starter was cleared from the table such that I then asked them not to bring it. We were also surprised as we waited for our mains that when the newly arrived table next to us were given their menus, their waiter reeled off a list of the day's specials, since our waitress had failed to mention there were specials period; it would have been nice to know.
Crab chowder, croutons and parmesan
Swiss cheese souffle, spinach and bechemel
So to the mains. We were intrigued by the 'Slice of coq au vin' and felt compelled to order it, with the other main comprising of a half North Berwick Lobster Thermidor and an accompaniment of Macaroni with mushroom cream and poached egg.
The slice of coq au vin provides a variation to the classic, with the chicken taken off the bone, pressed into a terrine and therefore amenable to subsequent slicing. Sadly, the overall effect was a rather dry slab of pressed chicken with an insufficient quantity of a mediocre red wine sauce to help you get through to the end. In fact, I did fail to reach the end and a third of the chicken departed the table for the return journey to the kitchen when the plates were cleared. Great coq au vin plates at Bar Boulud and Coq d'Argent haven proven that this is a dish which can still be a show stopper in its own right when executed brilliantly well, but sadly not here. The additional side of 'golden wonder mash' had the texture of drying cement and reminded me of school dinners. It cried out for butter, preferably a lot of it. All but an exploratory bite of the potato dish was returned to the kitchen.
The lobster faired somewhat better but from lobster tastings this week alone at Ondine, through to The Lobster Shack and then Castle Terrace, the Honour's lobster was never a contender. The macaroni came artfully arranged in stacked parallel tubes though the heterogeneity of macaroni, some straight some curvy, made the presentation look simultaneously pretentious and awkward (a word that just keeps cropping up). The mushroom cream sauce meanwhile appeared to lack cream and the plate seemed generally ill at ease. This macaroni dish is also available as a stand alone main (we ordered a starter size portion as a side), but if this had of been our main course, I can only imagine what a disappointment we would have felt.
The slice of coq au vin provides a variation to the classic, with the chicken taken off the bone, pressed into a terrine and therefore amenable to subsequent slicing. Sadly, the overall effect was a rather dry slab of pressed chicken with an insufficient quantity of a mediocre red wine sauce to help you get through to the end. In fact, I did fail to reach the end and a third of the chicken departed the table for the return journey to the kitchen when the plates were cleared. Great coq au vin plates at Bar Boulud and Coq d'Argent haven proven that this is a dish which can still be a show stopper in its own right when executed brilliantly well, but sadly not here. The additional side of 'golden wonder mash' had the texture of drying cement and reminded me of school dinners. It cried out for butter, preferably a lot of it. All but an exploratory bite of the potato dish was returned to the kitchen.
The lobster faired somewhat better but from lobster tastings this week alone at Ondine, through to The Lobster Shack and then Castle Terrace, the Honour's lobster was never a contender. The macaroni came artfully arranged in stacked parallel tubes though the heterogeneity of macaroni, some straight some curvy, made the presentation look simultaneously pretentious and awkward (a word that just keeps cropping up). The mushroom cream sauce meanwhile appeared to lack cream and the plate seemed generally ill at ease. This macaroni dish is also available as a stand alone main (we ordered a starter size portion as a side), but if this had of been our main course, I can only imagine what a disappointment we would have felt.
Slice of coq au vin
Golden wonder mash
North Berwick Lobster Thermidor
Macaroni, mushroom cream, poached egg
So, with disappointments all the way down the line, we didn't want to get too adventurous with desserts and opted for an ice cream sundae: toffee and caramel ice cream, honeycomb, caramelised banana and pecan nuts, a dessert in its totality named after the restaurant, The Honours. The dessert was nice enough and delivered per its description. But on spooning out the honeycomb from the bottom of the glass, we are 99% sure that it was a broken up Cadbury Crunchie bar. We know that a lot of restaurants would go that route if honeycombe were needed in a dessert, but we can't, for example, ever imagine Raymond Blanc allowing such a thing, even in his Brasserie chain; we're surprised that Martin Wishart is happy to do this.
toffee and caramel ice cream, honeycomb, caramelised banana and pecan nuts
the honeycomb in the dessert is we think a broken Crunchie bar
We have the utmost respects for Martin Wishart's talents as a chef and as already noted, we have been almost evangelical about his fine dining restaurant since our visit there last year. It was clear though from looking round at the customers in The Honours tonight that this was a big night out for many: an above averagely expensive meal and a desire on their part to eat the food of a local legend and one of the country's best chefs, and yet how far short of delivering anything close to that experience did this feel? To be brutal, Cafe Rouge delivers a better brasserie experience at their ubiquitous chain while the nine outlet Brasserie Blanc also offer in addition to food a slickness to operations that was not evident at The Honours. The Honours should however be kicking the ass of places like these.
The really sad thing is that if this were our first experience of Martin Wishart's food, we would simply strike Restaurant Martin Wishart off our list of restaurants and never visit it, convinced we'd be wasting our money. And that would be a total shame because Restaurant Martin Wishart is simply brilliant; disappointingly, The Honours is not.
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Related links:
The Honours website
The really sad thing is that if this were our first experience of Martin Wishart's food, we would simply strike Restaurant Martin Wishart off our list of restaurants and never visit it, convinced we'd be wasting our money. And that would be a total shame because Restaurant Martin Wishart is simply brilliant; disappointingly, The Honours is not.
Return to homepage
Related links:
The Honours website
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