Fhior hosts dinner to showcase North Ronaldsay's seaweed-eating sheep

There will be five mutton-based courses

Edinburgh’s Fhior restaurant is championing a unique type of meat at one of their Native & Rare events, which takes place on May 31 at 7pm.

This five-course dinner features mutton that’s been sourced from meat producer and wholesaler, MacDuff 1890. There will also be guest speakers - Billy Muir, the chair of the North Ronaldsay Sheep Council and Shetland sheep breeder, Richard Briggs.

“The North Ronaldsay mutton is one of the rarest products that we source annually. We can only get it once a year, when the annual punding (gathering) of the fattened sheep occurs - usually in April”, says MacDuff 1890 owner, Andrew Duff. “The flavour is truly unique, primarily due to it being one of the only mammals in the world to have a diet mainly consisting of seaweed, foraged from the Orkney shores. The only way to describe the flavour is that it almost tastes like the sea - rich in minerals and also, due to the older age of the mutton, the meat holds a beautiful strong, depth of flavour. The fact that it is also a highly sustainable product is of course an added bonus”.

Fhior

The menu will showcase different cuts. Although the final food list is under wraps, head chef of Fhior, Scott Smith, has shared a couple of the potential courses.

These include lamb broth, dashi, braised neck, miso, barley and beremeal dumplings, as well as a bbq saddle, and a leg carpaccio with smoked egg yolk puree, pickled wild garlic buds and sweet cicely. Pudding will most likely be a sheep’s milk based dessert.

Tickets £70 at www.fhior.com