I had a superb lunch at East Lothian's best new restaurant
This destination is well worth the journey
I’ve had a recent bad spell of arriving for restaurant reviews slightly late.
It’s tardy, I know, and I hate being that person, but I blame the buses.
Anyway, when we visited Papple Steading for lunch at their newly launched restaurant, Eve’s Court Cafe, we had hired a car to get out to Haddington, and the wind must’ve been behind it, as us early birds came sailing in for lunch at 11.23am.
At least that gave us a pre-prandial opportunity to explore this freshly restored Nineteenth-century farm steading, which is owned by entrepreneur George Mackintosh.
We wandered around their magical and snowdrop-dappled woodland garden, with its six-foot-tall white rabbit, stone badger and wooden bridges, and perused the double level Demarco Gallery, where there’s currently a colourful selling exhibition by painter Elaine Spears.
Then, we made pests of ourselves, by pressing our noses against the window of one of their currently unoccupied holiday properties - ooh la la, it looks fancy in there - before furtively lingering in their wine shop, and rubbernecking over madeleines under glass cloches on the counter.
Time check? 11.57am and 42 seconds. Let’s get to work!
Although it seemed as if most diners were on the appealing-looking bacon rolls and cheese scones at this point, they also have a smarter menu available from noon.
We already had an inkling that the food was going to be good, as Mackintosh has collaborated with the talented chef Scott Smith of Blank Plate Creative and formerly of Edinburgh restaurants Norn and Fhior.
Indeed, our starters were beautiful.
I had the steamed Shetland mussels (£13), with about a wibbly dozen, each presented on confit leek plinths, along with dill strands, toasted almond chips, and a gorgeously rich roasted mussel butter sauce that was polka-dotted by a green herby oil so it looked like a painting of the cosmos.
He’d gone for the roasted crown prince squash, oloroso sherry and aged Anster soup (£12), which was a vast bowlful of vibrant orange, sweetly nutty and ultra cheesy toasty pumpkin-seed topped liquid that gave him a comforted Ready-Brek glow.
It came with a large slice of toasted sourdough, and I pinched half of that to mop up the remains of my lush shellfish butter.
The main courses were equally impressive.
My red deer loin (£24) was a last wintery hoorah before spring hits properly. The two pads of bouncy pink meat were beautifully pink, and they came with a salty quennelle of pulped Phantassie Organics turnip, with crunchy puffs of buckwheat on top. There was also a fruity bramble jus, and a few charred sprouts.
Our other main course was the bbq monkfish (£19.50), with two meaty and palm-sized slices of this pale fish on a rich, oniony and tangy creamed pearl barley risotto, with struts of apple, chives and cubes of celeriac in the mix.
I don’t know if we really needed side dishes, but we couldn’t resist a portion of perfect Koffman fries (£5.50) and their lemony and their irony charred winter greens (£5).
There is just one sweet dessert (or you can choose cheese) on the food list.
However, there are also intriguing cakes up on the counter, including a sea buckthorn and dark chocolate choux bun; pine and salted caramel custard tart, or yoghurt and meadowsweet loaf. It’s not a plain old carrot cake sort of joint.
We stuck with the menu and opted for the sticky quince tart tatin (£9.50) with coppery pastry, soft fruit and a pale scoop of the multi-tasking creme fraiche ice-cream - aka the perfect hybrid invention for those who can’t decide what’s the best accompaniment to this classic pudding.
There was also a special-of-the-day dessert of forced Yorkshire rhubarb cream, with slices of rhubarb and orange, and crisp orange tuiles (£9.50) - simple, fresh and lovely.
Drinks need a mention, too.
The coffee is wonderful here, and is from Edinburgh’s finest roastery, Santu. There’s a great wine list, and a few classic cocktails made with local spirits. I tried their frothy Glenkinchie 12 sour (£11) and we sampled a softie in the form of a zippy and bright pink grapefruit and lavender homemade cordial (£4).
It’s also worth noting that this place, which is family - there’s a very decent children’s menu - and dog friendly, was totally packed and buzzy.
Apparently, such is demand, there is already talk about them expanding the food offering into bigger parts of the steading.
This is obviously a hot destination, so make your booking fast. Hopefully, the wind will be behind you.
Eve’s Court Cafe, Papple Steading, Haddington, East Lothian, www.papple.com
Read more: “The 'luxury' restaurant and cafe that's opened as part of glorious new East Lothian destination”
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