New head chef Lewis Vimpany uses a delicate touch to drive a menu of locally foraged flavours with no wastage
There is no menu at Aizle. Search the restaurant's website or sit down at one of its tables and guests are simply offered a list of ingredients. This could include the generic ‘cherry' or the more specific ‘laminated brioche', but guests won't know which ingredient pertains to which of the six courses until after they've had the last bite.
"It might be just two ingredients for one dish or it might be three," says head chef Lewis Vimpany. "It's a surprise to keep them on their toes and excited for what's to come."
Vimpany was promoted to head chef at Aizle in August 2022 having joined the restaurant as senior sous chef in October 2020. He has previously worked at Number One at the Balmoral in Edinburgh, Gleneagles in Auchterarder, and the Cellar in Fife, and his new role means he'll be increasing his creative input in the eight-year-old restaurant.
The menu is inspired by Scandinavian food and diners will also spot Asian influences sitting alongside Scottish ingredients. "We like to keep it nice and light, and I think that's the way the industry is going," he says.
This is evident in an early course of chawanmushi – a Japanese egg custard dish which stays fairly constant on the menu with the toppings changing depending on what is in season, for example, wild garlic in spring.
To make the early autumn iteration, the chefs reduce fresh sweetcorn and create a smooth purée, then add it to the custard mixture of egg, cream, dashi and soy sauce. When guests arrive, the custard is steamed in individual pots for five minutes until set and a ponzu gel is layered on top. Pickled black garlic gel is dotted over the barbecued corn, along with wild mushrooms from local foragers and some spring onions.
One of Vimpany's favourite dishes is the dessert: Scottish strawberries, verjus and meadowsweet. The meadowsweet, a flower that typically grows by riverbanks, is picked by foragers, dried and preserved so the kitchen can use it out of season. It's then infused into a white chocolate mousse, which is given a strawberry centre and a topping of strawberry sorbet and crimson strawberry ‘glass'.
"It's a nice contrast of the luxurious with the foraged ingredients," says Vimpany.
On the side of this abstract artwork of a dessert is the far more familiar: a jammy dodger. "In some places at the end of the meal you're craving something really sweet, but we wanted to do something different where the guests feel like they get more," he says. It's certainly sweet and finishes the meal with a note of nostalgia. "You'd probably get away with leaving it off, but it's a bit of fun for us."
And that's not the only course with an extra little bite. The duck course, with a tender slice of duck breast and assorted tiny blobs of heritage carrot purée and apricot, is accompanied by a pastry bite reminiscent of a duck spring roll, but far richer and intricately-flavoured than the offering from your local takeaway.
"When we get the ducks we cook them on the crown. The legs are cooked in duck fat and we take the meat off and put it in pastry," says Vimpany. "We don't want to waste anything – everything gets used." For £60 guests can add a wine pairing, which includes a fresh cocktail of Scottish myrtle, crab apple and Pickering's gin, natural wines and even a mead for the cheese course.
The cheese, provided at a £15 supplement, is Tête de Moine, shaved into peony-like florets to give a light and airy texture. It comes with fermented truffle honey, which was once provided in smaller portions until front of house staff noticed that guests were practically licking the pots clean, so a generous portion with a glass honey spoon is laid out among the offering so that they can have their fill.
At the moment Vimpany and the Aizle team are working on a few new dishes. "Summer has come to an end, all the herbs are going and strawberries are coming out of season. But we don't just change it for seasonality, we change it when we want. If you have a dish on the menu for a long time it can get quite boring, so you want to change and evolve."
Though there aren't any specific plans for Aizle's future, thanks to the various shutdowns during the pandemic the team still feel fairly new in the bright, greenhouse-like space they moved into in July 2020 in the Kimpton Charlotte Square hotel.
"We'll just keep pushing on with what we're doing and see where it takes us," he says.
From the menu
- Laminated brioche, chicken liver parfait, cultured butter, tapenade
- Beetroot, lanark blue cheese
- Croustade, tartare, yuzu kosho
- Sweet potato, Lough Neagh eel, squash
- Barbecue corn, chawanmushi, wild mushrooms
- Isle of Wight tomatoes, crowdie cheese, caviar
- Smoked Loch Etive trout, trout roe, cucumber
- Goosnargh duck, carrots, fig
- Cheese (optional £15) Tête de moine, fermented truffle honey
- Cherry, koji rice, almond
- Chocolate, barley, salted milk
Tasting menu, £85
Kimpton Charlotte Square hotel, 38 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh EH2 4HQ
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