Food: Cottage industry

The cottage is fringed by hedges, with a moss-covered path up to its black door. You may have noticed this perfectly symmetrical Hansel and Gretel-esque place, if you’ve ever wandered along Edinburgh’s London Road, and asked yourself – who lives there? The answer is, nobody. It was once the home of Royal Terrace Gardens’ last resident gardener, and then his widow, until she died around five years ago. Since then, it’s been occupied by spiders and, latterly, squatters.

Sad, if you consider that this single-storey, B-listed property, like Royal Terrace (just behind Royal Terrace Gardens, in which this cottage is situated), was designed by William Playfair and built in 1836.

Soon, however, it will be bustling, as it’s been taken over by local chefs, Edward Murray, 34, and Dale Mailley, 27, who will be opening their restaurant, The Gardener’s Cottage, here next month.

“We had an eye out for a few years, looking for restaurant premises,” says Murray. “We got very excited when we saw the To Let sign. When it comes to the refurbishment, because it’s listed, we can do almost nothing externally – not that we would have wanted to. Inside, they’ve agreed to a few alterations, but apart from that we’re not changing much.”

As Murray studied architecture at Edinburgh College of Art, graduating in 2004, before becoming a chef, he’s responsible for designing the new layout.

When I visit, the ceiling is stripped back to bare struts, as City of Edinburgh Council, who let out the building, are treating areas of dry rot.

There is a stack of mail by the door, presumably addressed to the former owner. A cat flap is gaffer taped shut, and the checkered lino is thick with dust. The back windows are grated up, the doors studded with locks, and the aqua-coloured kitchen cupboard doors are hanging off.

After a £40,000 refurbishment, the two main rooms at the front of the property will become dining areas, with communal tables – made from teak decking that was reclaimed from Glasgow-built ocean liner SS Olympia – and topped with antique silverware and crockery.

The rough plan is to have a set menu of five small courses each evening, at around £25 per person, with dishes that are dictated by what’s available locally and the seasons. When we meet, the chefs have been trialling recipes at the capital’s weekly Farmers’ Market on Castle Terrace, with options including Scots pine charred asparagus with ramson mayonnaise, heather roast roe deer and sweet cicely custard.

As well as dinners, they will also offer brunch at weekends, with informal sharing plates at lunchtime.

“We see ourselves a bit differently to the fine-dining thing, when tables are spaced out and the kitchen is hidden away somewhere,” explains Murray, who met Mailley four years ago, when they both worked at the now defunct Edinburgh restaurant, Atrium. “We want to be connected – people will hopefully be chatting to each other, and we’ll be in and out of the kitchen to talk about the food that we’re serving.”

Their new oven will be slotted partially into a space that’s currently a cupboard, with the business end in a boxroom. The latter space will be the kitchen, with a pass that opens up into one of the dining rooms.

“It’s quite a small space but lots of kitchens are, you get used to it,” says Murray. This room, at least, has a window, which looks out on to the back garden. Once they’ve tidied up the bank of dead leaves, this area will seat a dozen covers. And, behind this, on a grassy slope enclosed by railings, there are plans for a “wild” space to grow the kind of plants that you might forage for, and potentially a community garden.

The latter idea may explain why the council accepted these chefs’ tender last year, as there was some competition to let this place for commercial use.

In its early years, the building, with its timber pediment, didn’t always have the most conscientious of occupants. According to Historic Scotland, the first tenant was gardener John Niven, who often forgot to lock the gates at night and would graze his horse in the gardens. While, a later successor, George Wood, was asked to vacate the cottage in 1871, after he’d allowed nearby families to use areas of Royal Terrace Gardens as bleaching greens.

Let’s hope the chefs won’t leave their tablecloths out to dry on the grass. Of course they won’t, they’re too invested in their new venue.

As Murray says, “We can’t wait to get it open and start cooking.”