Review: Kin by Gary Maclean, Edinburgh

Boutique five-star hotel The Roseate Edinburgh has upped the ante by refurbishing its restaurant and unveiling celebrity chef Gary Maclean.

The Roseate Edinburgh is situated in two of the impressive Victorian mansions set back from the road between Haymarket and Murrayfield. This 35-bedroomed boutique hotel, which opened in 2023, is the group’s first foray into Scotland, sees it join hotels in London, Reading and Bath, plus the Roseate group’s two flagship properties in India, in New Delhi and Rishikesh.

History doesn’t relate whether the Roseate Edinburgh has upped its game because it was struggling to be heard in the cluttered culinary landscape of Edinburgh, because it was simply the right time to look afresh at its food offering, or because Gary Maclean was free. But persuading Maclean to move to this almost suburban destination is a coup.

Gary Maclean

Scotland’s First National Chef and winner of MasterChef: The Professionals, Maclean has undoubted cachet, and the Roseate have certainly invested heavily on the back of his arrival, with interior designers Hannah Lohan and New Heritage Design crafting an understated, stylish 42-cover dining area in a space that manifestly belongs to an 1860s villa despite the presence of a large bar at the end of the room.

The menu is an a la carte operation, complete with all of the usual statements re provenance, localism and seasonality. We started with Kames steelhead trout (£16) with seaweed, miso, radish apples and sesame, and a dish of scallop with brown crab, barley, spinach and shellfish emulsion (£19).

The latter was comfortably the more impactful of the two dishes, with the nicely nuanced shellfish emulsion and crab elevating the scallop, although the barley was a bit too al dente for my liking.

Interior designers Hannah Lohan and New Heritage Design have crafted a stylish 42-cover dining area

While the steelhead trout dish can’t be faulted for its conception – the Oban-based operation at Kames is marketing farmed non-indigenous steelhead (the rainbow trout version of sea trout) as an ethical alternative to salmon – the trout’s flavour was so subtle that it struggled to make itself felt above the miso and sesame.

The main courses were both solid, well-constructed dishes. First up was a perfectly-cooked rack of Campsie lamb (£32) that came with purple-sprouting broccoli and sublime crispy boulangere potatoes, and pea puree, but which was also accompanied by a curiously bitter jus.

The other main was commendably flavour-packed pork belly with black pudding, puy lentils, wilted kale and shallots (£22).

We rounded off with a disappointing dark chocolate, Glenmorangie and orange fondant (£12) that was so dry it was almost arid, and a Harris gin and red berry custard tart (£12) which hit the mark.

This recently opened celebrity-led hotel restaurant is a quiet and refined, if quite expensive, option for diners in the capital. It’s useful to have somewhere that’s open every evening and where you can eat quite late, with last orders at 9.30pm.

The interior design is on point, providing a sophisticated environment, while the service is friendly and efficient, and the wine list has a nice wide mix.