Restaurant review: The Saint, Edinburgh

The winner would be an unheralded little basement bar-restaurant in the well-kent drinking strip of St Stephen Street, in Edinburgh's Stockbridge, saddled between those celebrated establishments of the Baillie and the Antiquary, and with extremely good company in the Stockbridge Restaurant and Redwood, not to mention old stagers such as Bells Diner.

The Saint may look like a style bar. It may be labouring against the handicap of an inauspiciously crowded location and the indignity of a silly name. But this place also serves some of the best and cheapest food in Edinburgh.

In fact, the food is so staggeringly good and so patently provides fantastic value for money that it's hard to understand how the system of word of mouth has failed us so badly that we had to wait for a visiting Londoner to recommend it more than a year after its opening.

The explanation for this almost certainly lies in the recent addition of 24-year-old Stef Taylor to the staff. Since joining the Saint three months ago, after learning his trade at Christophe, Guernsey's only Michelin-starred restaurant, Edinburgh-born Taylor and his Polish sous chef Stan Wawrzyczek have constructed an ever-changing menu that defies convention yet hits the mark virtually every time.

One result of their exploits in the kitchen is a menu from which I could happily have ordered everything; the others, by all accounts, are full tables and satisfied customers.

If the Saint looks like a bar rather than a restaurant from the street, then that's possibly because it also functions as a pub – which probably shouldn't come as a complete surprise, given that it is owned by Jason Scott and Mike Aikman, the team behind the hugely popular Bramble Bar & Lounge.

Yet once you step down into a space that's nattily decorated – white-washed walls, gilt mirrors and a motley collection of old wooden furniture – you find yourself in a 30-cover restaurant that's both welcoming and relaxed, thanks to laid-back but efficient staff.

Yet the decor isn't the star of the show; the food is. This much became apparent as soon as our starters arrived. Vicky started off with a goat's cheese cheesecake with quail egg and beetroot, which was flawless. The thick, velvety goat's cheese was a joy, but so too was the way in which the denseness of the flavours were given a subtle lift through the sweetness imparted by the small cubes of beetroot.

If there were no gripes about the quality of the cheesecake, exactly the same could be said about my small but perfectly formed helping of seafood linguine. Topped with two rings of tempura squid, the linguine was packed with clams and salmon; but it was the expert blending of the sauce rather than the fish content that really elevated this dish so far out of the ordinary that it was no longer on the same planet.

If our starters were stratospherically good, our main courses were a notch down the scale. Vicky's poached salmon, which came with hollandaise sauce, rocket and rosti potatoes, was achingly close to the mark but was let down by the fish being unmistakably overcooked. Meanwhile, my confit duck leg with savoy cabbage and soy broth was a decent dish whose lack of seasoning stopped it becoming a good one.

But if the main courses didn't set the pulses gunning in quite the same way as our starters had, the puddings were truly memorable. The chocolate spring rolls with white chocolate and raspberry dip have to be the best thing I've eaten all year: a glorious mix of molten chocolate, crisp batter and a beautifully nuanced sauce, this was worth travelling for on its own.

Vicky's panna cotta with toffee sauce and roasted nuts didn't have quite the same capacity to shock and awe, but was still a superb version of the recipe, while both the homemade ice-creams – vanilla and Guinness – were so thick and creamy that I've vowed to double up on puddings in future.

The biggest surprise about the Saint, however, wasn't the excellent service (marred only by a strange inability to tell the difference between pudding wine and sherry) or even the remarkably good quality of the food, it was the price of a meal for two. With a decent bottle of white wine, three courses and service, our bill came to less than 50. Great food, great service and rock-bottom prices – what's not to like?

The Saint

44 St Stephen Street, Stockbridge, Edinburgh (0131-225 9009, www.thesaintedinburgh.co.uk)

Bill please: Starters 4-6 Mains 7-9.50 Desserts 4-5, Cheese 6

Rating: ****

This article was first published in The Scotland on Sunday, May 2, 2010