Celebrity chefs’ favourite Scots eatery La Potiniere goes on the market

La Potiniere, the Michelin-starred favourite of leading chefs such as Gordon Ramsay and Nick Nairn, put the village of Gullane in East Lothian on the gastronomic map.

Diners enthused about the top-class French cooking of self-taught chef Hilary Brown and the front-of-house style of husband David in an eccentric building often likened to a cowshed.

But after closing down the restaurant last year to take a break from the industry, the Browns have now decided to put the business on the market.

"After 25 years running the restaurant we needed time off and now we have decided to go a step further," said David Brown, who trained as a designer before entering the hospitality business.

"After such a long time there are a lot of emotions involved in this decision for both of us but I suppose it had to happen some time. We will miss it all terribly."

Nairn has called it the best restaurant in which he had ever eaten in Scotland, and Cornish chef Rick Stein always placed it in his top five in Britain. Ramsay, who opened his first venture in Scotland last year, said: "It’s a very great shame. In my view it is one of the best restaurants ever set up in Scotland."

La Potiniere was legendary for its long waiting lists for tables. Customers would have to book two years in advance if they wanted to try Hilary Brown’s set dinners on a Saturday night.

The unassuming premises opened as a tea room in 1924 and were bought by the Browns as a going concern in 1975. They transformed it into one of Scotland’s most successful dining experiences and the hard-earned Michelin star, one of the industry’s highest accolades, arrived 15 years later.

Hilary Brown said after the closure that she was in desperate need of a break from the kitchen after a quarter of a century of working almost single-handed.

The restaurant and next door three-bedroom cottage in Gullane’s Main Street is being sold by FPD Savills at an asking price of 390,000.