Rogue trader

"I called it Rogue, because I think of myself as a bit of a rogue," declares David Ramsden of his new Edinburgh restaurant, the 90-seat Rogue Restaurant and Bar, which opened at the end of June.

Ramsden's a character all right - with his shaved head, numerous piercings and tattoo. However, the famously dour city must be getting used to him by now: he ran Fitzhenry's in the metropolis's Leith suburb for six years before opening Rogue in the Scottish Widows building in Morrison Street in the heart of the city's financial district.

But although Fitzhenry's received rave reviews, it never quite worked commercially. The 17th-century former warehouse was just a bit too far off the beaten track to sustain enough interest, so for the past three years Ramsden has been searching for a more central location for his restaurant - and looking for a change in direction.

Rogue looks like something Philippe Starck might have had a hand in, with its Sanderson-style white restaurant interior and its wild zebra-print chaise longue and Louis XV chairs in the 25-seat bar. "You've hit it on the head," says Ramsden. "Starck and (Ian) Schrager are decoratively the most important influences for me." He calls it "rococo minimalism", and making it work was the job of Edinburgh-based architect Sam Booth.

There's a bit of Le Caprice about it, too, with its chrome and black leather Italian dining chairs and general feel of the place. Ramsden, it turns out, was a Caprice front man for a few months in the late 1980s. In fact, his days at Le Caprice had a massive impact upon him. "It's the most important thing I've ever done," he says, retrospectively. "The most intense, the most scary and the most enjoyable time I've ever had. They (Chris Corbin and Jeremy King) are incredible operators. I look back on that experience every day - even use it as a touch point in what I do now. But I was too stupid to see how important it was at the time, and I left after a few months."

In fact, he abandoned Le Caprice to pursue a career in rock'n'roll, managing a band which used to frequent Ramsden's very first restaurant venture, an Edinburgh music café with a shaky three-year shelf life called Hoorah Henry's ("Well, it was the 1980s").

The music industry career lasted just five years. "It was a huge amount of fun and at least I managed to exorcise that particular demon," says Ramsden. "But I wasn't really suited to the grasping nature of the music business." Penniless, he ended up back in his home town, Edinburgh, washing dishes for an old friend who owned a Mexican restaurant and "getting my head together".

It wasn't long before he got back into restaurant management, and then came an opportunity to open Fitzhenry's, thanks to a benevolent father-in-law. "We had four years with a Red M from Michelin," says Ramsden. "It was a pain in the arse, actually. People start taking you too seriously - they have these expectations with Michelin. But it has to be fun, too. That's important."

Rogue's menu would suit a smart restaurant and casual brasserie rolled into one, with similarly roller-coasting prices. You can eat a salad - say a warm marinated guinea fowl with lemon and parsley couscous and harissa for £6.75 - or go the whole hog with a roasted fillet of Buccleuch beef with r"sti potatoes and red wine onions for £22.50. There's even a nod to the Ivy and Le Caprice with the roasted vine tomato galette (£10). "It's an Ivy for the people, but more accessible," quips Ramsden. "An expensive restaurant where you can eat cheaply." Average spend is £20 for lunch and £35 for dinner including drinks.

Putting Ramsden's vision on to the plate is Richard Alexander, who has worked with Ramsden for the past four years. The 34-year-old Edinburgh-born chef has been cooking since leaving catering college at the age of 21. He left Edinburgh as soon as he could, working his way through Asia to Sydney, where he spent the next seven years cooking - including a stint with Neil Perry at Rockpool.

Alexander returned to London to cook in a private members' club called Whites, in St James's, where he worked with head chef Sean Thompson. "I thought I could cook until I got to Whites," he remembers. "London is just miles above anywhere else I've ever cooked in terms of standards. In Oz, they've got such great produce that they don't need to mess around with the food much. There's so much more technique involved in cooking here. Sean opened my eyes to the finer points." Eventually, Alexander made it back home to Edinburgh, securing a job with Ramsden soon after he had opened Fitzhenry's.

Alexander's cooking hasn't changed much since Fitzhenry's. He's still turning out similar dishes - "lighter, maybe, though still fresh, with no fuss". Offal is kept to a minimum (apparently, Edinburgh diners don't go a bundle on it) - just a couple of dishes: pan-fried ox tongue with new potato and Arran mustard salad (£4.95) and pan-fried calf's liver with white haricot bean pur‚e, crispy bacon and port wine jus (£12). "We have this great offal butcher - Aikman. He's the last one. When he goes, that'll be it. We've been supporting him for years."

Alexander is also a big fan of Edinburgh seafood supplier Eddie's Seafood Market. It's where he gets most of his fish, including sweet-tasting crab for a salad of dressed crab, avocado and tomato with lemon oil (£6).

Best seller

"I put a dish on at Fitzhenry's once, thinking it was my own, then found almost the same thing in a cookery book three months later. You can't make anything up any more - unless you're Charlie Trotter," says Alexander, who favours cookery books by the likes of Simon Hopkinson and Alistair Little - "those whose whole life revolves around food". His absolute favourite, though, is one by Anglo-Australian chef Donovan Cook, of Est Est Est in Melbourne.

The Buccleuch beef dish is popular, too - the confit-style onions winning many fans. Alexander cooks them slowly in goose fat for up to three hours, then deglazes the pan with white wine vinegar before adding a couple of bottles of claret and reducing it.

Is Edinburgh ready for Rogue? Ramsden admits that the city "finds me hard to swallow". But if the critics and the punters are anything to go by just two weeks after opening (rave reviews in the Scotsman and the Independent), the food is currently going down a storm. Dinner covers are averaging 40, but that is rising all the time.

"I shouldn't say this, but I find Edinburgh stultifying," says Ramsden, who was born in the city. "I think once I've built something up here, I'll head south, to Spain or France - it's the cradle of civilisation. Maybe I'll open something up there. Anyway, I'm getting on - my blood's getting thin, I need heat."