I returned to Six by Nico - the murderous theme was brilliant fun, but the food was meh

Six by NicoSix by Nico
Six by Nico | Gaby Soutar
For the latest culinary experience, expect to turn detective

It’s only when we arrive at Six by Nico that we realise we’ve both forgotten our reading glasses.

This is why we’re not allowed to be detectives. We’re ill prepared for any eventualities.

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I don’t remember Poirot ever having trouble with his vision.

In fact, apart from Angela Lansbury of Murder She Wrote, I can’t think of any fictional sleuths who wear specs. Maybe there’s a gap in the market?

Anyway, this is going to be a tricky evening for me, DCI Erbert Magoo, and my moustache-twiddling pound shop Captain Hastings, as we’re visiting to try the restaurant’s new experience, Murder on the Midnight Express, which is available at all their branches, including Edinburgh and Glasgow, until March 9.

It’s £44 for six courses, and you can add matching wine for £30 or cocktails for £40. We stayed tee-total, so we could keep our wits about us.

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It’s been a while since I was last at the Capital’s seven-year-old Hanover Street venue and it naturally suits the Thirties luxury train theme, with its chocolate banquettes, marbled wallpaper and potted palms.

Tonight, there is a staff member who’s dressed up as a porter, and, once the various covers have settled in with a glass of Prosecco and Campari - aka the Red Herring aperitif - he introduces the case.

In a nutshell, “There’s been a murder”.

On each table, there’s a book that contains the background of each suspect, and what happened to the victim - a chef, Gustave Laroche, who was shot in the train’s kitchen while wearing his whites. It’s going to take more than Persil to get those stains out. We’re provided with a newspaper that reports the sorry story, plus a little velvet bag of tools, including, praise be, a magnifying glass, which we use in lieu of reading glasses.

At last, we can stop drawing attention to ourselves by shining our phone torches and squinting at the menu.

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Without giving away too many spoilers, before each course, you are presented with further evidence.

That might be a postcard, a note, a business card, a smoking jar of ‘Barbitol’ - ‘that’s not for eating,” says our server, helpfully - or a pair of cigars that do turn out to be edible. Then, when the server takes your plates, they ask what your theories are, and, we thought, provide a bit of a steer if you’re bimbling hopelessly in the wrong direction.

the ham hough dishthe ham hough dish
the ham hough dish | Gaby Soutar

It’s so much fun, though I am totally inept. I keep getting the suspects’ names mixed up, and lose track of the narrative. That’s not helped by the guy at a table nearby who keeps loudly saying “It’s SO obvious”, in a very irritating fashion. I met an awful lot of people like him when I did jury service.

In the end, we are thrown off course, and get it wrong, but our original suspicions were correct, so we’re not total dimwits.

Oh, and then there’s the food.

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We’re so invested in the murder mystery that dinner became something of an afterthought.

They’ve given the courses a classic French theme. The best dishes are probably Oyster Bar - poached sole, cauliflower puree and a caper-studded tartare sauce, though the ‘burnt apple’ element is acrid and best dodged. The Restaurant course consists of a wodge of pleasingly chewy and crispy-cornered tartiflette which is topped with a flurry of crated comte royale and served with smoked bacon jam. I also managed to chow down both of our slightly-watery-but-still-a-treat Coffee Lounge tiramisu desserts, since my other half wasn’t keen. I stole his accompanying dark chocolate bullet, too. See, I took a bullet for him. That’s love.

The other options were a bit so-so. I wasn’t totally sold on the first course, Crime Scene - goat’s cheese mousseline, in the form of a toque chef’s hat, and served with ‘salted and pickled raspberry’, and heirloom beetroot - simply because the fruity element was so sickly sweet that it tasted like the old-school dragon’s blood they used to squirt on ice-cream.

goat's cheese coursegoat's cheese course
goat's cheese course | Gaby Soutar

Also, the texture of the chicken ballotine in the Engine Room dish was like very fibrous and dry pulled pork. I had to check the menu, to work out what the heck I was eating. At least we finished its accessories - pulpy quenelles of Jerusalem artichoke, charcoal emulsion and truffle cafe au lait.

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So, what I’m trying to say is, don’t go purely for the food., as it’s the experience that really sells this theme.

They’ve designed it rather brilliantly.

We were absorbed, and, you know, it’s something different to talk about, rather than work, the weather and the latest global disaster.

Just remember to take your reading glasses if you want to solve this case, unless you want to struggle like DCI Magoo.

Six by Nico, 97 Hanover Street, Edinburgh (0131 225 5050, www.sixbynico.co.uk)

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