Despite having visited many restaurants in Edinburgh, for some reason we hadn’t made it to Fhior yet and we were keen to rectify that in 2022. We had heard good things (mostly in our Facebook group) but decided to go for the set lunch with a view to trying the tasting menu at a future date if we enjoyed it.
Fhior is located on Broughton Street in the premises that was once occupied by Seasons, which we had visited previously. The restaurant still felt really familiar. On the day we were there it was really cold, I think there may have been heating issues as we had heard other guests mentioning it.
The four course lunch menus is £35 and includes two snacks. The langoustine bisque was delicate in flavour and lukewarm, not sure if it was intended to be this way so we didn’t mention it. The tiny cubes of pickled carrot contrasted really well with the broth. The second snack was a cracker with (if we heard correctly!), duck liver parfait. It was a very moreish mouthful and we were both wishing we could enjoy several more!
The first of the courses began with a very vibrant plate of diced Ox Heart with Beetroot. The presentation was stunning. I was expecting a stronger flavour from the heart and was pleased to discover it was a lot more gentle than I expected and worked really well with the accompaniments. The perfectly cooked Cod which arrived next sat in a delicious pool of Chicken Butter Sauce. We couldn’t taste much chicken but who cares, it was velvety and rich and complemented the cod.
We hate criticising too heavily but we have to be honest and say that the main was really underwhelming. We both love chicken but our tiny slice was very bland and the rest of the dish lacked any real excitement too. Despite being a lunch menu the portion was too small in our opinion. We actually left feeling quite hungry afterwards and ended up having cake with our coffee that afternoon, which was unexpected.
The dessert of Pear with Honey lifted things a wee bit. The crackers were the highlight along with the ice cream, there wasn’t a huge amount of acidity in the dish though which we missed.
We really wanted to love Fhior but we left feeling a wee bit disappointed. After reading all the positive reviews, we were left wondering if we’d just caught them on an off day?
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