Flavour Profile Q&A: We asked Scott and Laura Smith, owners of Edinburgh's Fhior, about their food likes and dislikes

They tell us about their love of Scotch eggs and Lindt chocolate

What’s your favourite ingredient?

Scott: It’s impossible to name just one. However, one of my favourites would be pepper dulse - a truffle-flavoured seaweed which is always available. I also love Jerusalem artichoke but Laura hates it.

Laura: All types of Cheese. Brie is top of the list – just perfect, not chalky, not squishy.

Do you have a guilty food pleasure?

Scott: Scotch eggs and pork rinds. I love a traditional bar snack, the saltier the better.

Laura: Chocolate, all the way. Not the glamorous type - Lindt milk chocolate with hazelnut always hits the spot. If I could have gluten, it would be baguette and butter from Normandy.

Tell us about your first food memory?

Laura and Scott Smith of Fhior

Laura: We both have clear memories of our families growing food. Scott would pick and eat strawberries straight from the plants in his granny’s garden in Aberdeenshire. I would be foraging raspberries from the canes in the sunny south of France. I grew up there and my parents have always had a self-sustaining lifestyle. I grew radishes in my own little patch from as early as I can remember. Picking produce was part of our every day existence - raspberries in the summer sun were especially delicious.

What’s your favourite Scottish restaurant, deli or cafe?

Scott: The best dining experience we have had recently was at Inver Restaurant & Rooms in Cairndow. It was such a special weekend. We were greeted with fresh oysters from the loch. We watched the sunset while we ate and listened to records.

What would be your last supper?

Laura: I’d choose French baguette and butter, or croissant and butter. There is a theme.

Scott: It would have to be freshly hand-dived scallops and oysters – death by oysters please.

Starter or pudding?

Laura: Pudding, always.

Scott: Starter, every time.

Do you have any food hates?

Scott: I will genuinely eat anything, at least once. Other than tripe – I really want to like it, I just can’t.

Laura: The only thing I don’t like is cardamom.

What starters, main and dessert would be served at your dream dinner party and who would you invite?

Scott: I’d invite Keith Floyd, Antony Bourdain and Brian Cox. When we’re all tipsy, Brian can blow our minds on space and mathematics. We’d have a classic prawn cocktail starter followed by a whole roasted turbot on the BBQ with Lunan Bay asparagus, salad, and the trimmings. Then a sharp lemon tart for dessert.

Laura: I think I’ll be too busy getting the house ready! However, once it was tidy, my dream dinner guests would be Micky Flanagan, David Bowie and Coco Chanel. We'd eat freshly picked radishes with a pinch of salt and cold butter.

Fhior have extended the range of their Root to Market produce delivery service, which offers bread, wine and provisions from suppliers including Yester Farm Dairies and Phantassie Organics, to the East Lothian area, see www.root-to-market.co.uk

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