Restaurant review: Mark Greenaway at Hawke & Hunter

Published on Sunday 20 February 2011 11:36

Elvis has entered the building. Well, you might imagine so, if you consider the hoo-haa surrounding the arrival of head chef Mark Greenaway (previously of The Dryburgh Abbey Hotel and One Devonshire Gardens) at bar, club and eatery, Hawke & Hunter.

However, there is, I suppose, nothing wrong with a little bit of swagger. Still, all the hyperbole meant that my boyfriend, Rolf, and I had big expectations on our visit.

To start, I went for hand-dived Orkney scallops (11), while my other half fancied the Loch Fyne crab cannelloni (7).

The latter dish consisted of a goldfish-bowl-like container that was full of swirling oak smoke. So, when the glass "lid" on the top was lifted off, there was an autumnal waft of bonfires.

The top bunk of his dish (aka the lid) contained a pale-green pasta tube that was stuffed with brown crab meat and strewn with baby coriander leaves, while, the bottom level featured a super-sweet "cauliflower custard", which was dotted with bead-sized "lemon pearls" and a magenta flourish of "beetroot mayo". A spectacular show-off of a dish.

My option consisted of four creamy scallops, which were dusted with dried scallop, and sat on a raft of buttery pomme fondant. They were beautiful, and there was plenty of textural interest, thanks to the chestnut-coloured powder, as well as the wobbly cubes of transparent "tomato jelly" and smooth "parsley mayonnaise". However, sometimes the delicate flavours were subtle enough to be almost undetectable.

Rolf scored again with his main: the skate wing sous vide (16). This super soft piece of fish was rolled up into a tube, alongside crispy pipes of squid, a scoop of glossy olive-oil-spiked mash, square "beetroot crisps" (which resembled empty After Eight packets) and a single, lavender-legged baby octopus. The whole shebang was topped with a blood-red beetroot pure, and came with a jug of smokey brown butter.

Magical, earthy, elemental – this was like a Tolkien book in foodie form.

"It's beezer," said my dining partner.

I'd gone for Clash Farm belly pork (17), which was a perfectly prepared bistro dish (unlike the theatrical fandango that Rolf had been presented with).

It consisted of a tile of crunchily rendered pork, slices of spiced pork fillet, a quenelle of mash, a heap of savoy cabbage and a tiny whorl of sticky toffee apple jus (more please).

I'd heard positive whispers about the puds here, so I overlooked the Manjari chocolate fondant (6.50) in favour of the intriguing-sounding broken lemon tart (6.50).

This offering looked like an Eighties record sleeve (Yazoo, perhaps), with its blocks, spots and angular squelches.

I identified miniature squares of watermelon and clear "coconut jelly", zesty yuzu parfait topped with pistachio pure, as well as pieces of what the menu described as "frozen shortbread".

This dish was interesting, conceptually, but it didn't taste particularly satisfying, with its wisps of faint citrus-y flavour here and there.

Rolf felt the same about his dessert, which was sexily entitled "Mark's Eaton mess, fresh fruit, pearls, paint, leather, frozen espuma, ripple ice-cream" (6.50).

The berry ice-cream was intensely fruity, but the rest was a haberdashery counter, rather than a sweet, with more of those lemon pearls, plus crunchy strips of dried fruit, splotches of pure (the paint, I'd assume) and dinky meringues.

If you took a spoonful of more than one element, the flavours didn't really gel.

We should have gone for the fondant.

Still, I appreciate the craft that's gone into these desserts (and we wished that it wasn't so dark in this dining room, so we could fully appreciate the visual spectacle).

I think Hawke & Hunter are right to be so excited about their new addition.

If Elvis were to shake a skillet, rather than his pelvis, then he may just have entered the building.

Mark Greenaway at Hawke & Hunter

12 Picardy Place,

Edinburgh

www.markgreenaway.com

This article was first published in The Scotsman, 19 February, 2011