THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
54 St Stephen Street, Stockbridge, Edinburgh EH3 5AL
Chef is a genius,
said our gracious maître d' Jason, as he explained how American Chef Rodney Wages could serve a 13 (or so) course tasting menu that changes daily. It was two or three dishes in, and I found myself nodding, earnestly and a bit moonstruck. I don't know many geniuses, but after my dinner at Avery, Chef's new Edinburgh exercise in haute cuisine, I think he must qualify.
Before I dined at Avery, I felt a theoretical kinship with Chef Wages. Last year he moved to Scotland and started a new business from scratch, which I did in 2014 (although mine was in law, rather than food). It takes a special kind of mettle to up sticks and move to a foreign country to reestablish yourself in the middle of your career. (I say, sounding self-congratulatory.)
In his early professional years, he worked at the world-famous restaurant, The French Laundry, in Yountville, Napa Valley, where I had one of the best meals of my life in 2007. Obtaining a reservation there was as hard as obtaining a Taylor Swift concert ticket at face value. And that's just one of many highlights on his resume. For instance, the previous iteration of Avery in San Francisco had achieved a Michelin star in each of its last three years of operation, which was no mean feat given the competition in that region. All that to say I was ready to love Avery when I walked in the door.
The experience was even better than I could have hoped. The attention to each detail of taste, texture, presentation, and service by Chef and his small team placed Avery as my new favorite restaurant in Scotland. I started planning my next meal there before I even finished this one.
The menu was scrawled on a rough bit of card stock. Caviar
was the description of the first dish. Raw Fish,
the next. Jason told us that the descriptions are intentionally vague as they never know what ingredients the two foragers – one for land and one for sea – are going to bring in. I fancy myself a gastronome, but I had never tasted some of the flora and fungi used in the dishes. I particularly admired the grated kombu (dried sea kelp), which topped the Æbelskiver (Danish pancakes), the salty fingers and sea beet in the Bits and Bobs from the Sea
, and the peppery nasturtium flowers nestled in with girolles and twice-pan-fried venison.
I'm generally frightened by tasting menus that include wine pairings; more than two drinks with dinner and I'm likely to teeter off my heels into a heap on the ground. But Avery does something a little bit different here, which rendered the pairing supremely enjoyable. Instead of giving you a glass of wine with each course, they give you a variety of drinks, pairing them with multiple dishes. I was absolutely delighted by the thimble-sized pouring of white sherry that accompanied Chef's famous tortelloni dish. The sherry tasted like olives, and the tortelloni was drowning in garlic and butter, so the combination was surprising and wonderful. I also loved the dram of Deanston 12 whisky served with the wood pigeon haggis.
A bit about the dining environment. Avery inhabits a small, basement restaurant space in Stockbridge. The walls are painted with the rich, black-green color of Zeitgeist
, by Craig & Rose, and hung with super artworks by San Francisco artist Victor Reyes. Jason confirmed that every item, from the pearlized spoons to the brass monkey on the display table, was shipped over from the original Avery in America. Every decorative item has a purpose – some sort of inspirational relationship to the food.
Honestly, I don't think food gets much better than this. I want this restaurant to succeed for a selfish reason – so I can go back over and over in the years to come.
Regular tasting menu: £149 pp.
August (Festival) Pre-Theatre tasting menu: £89 pp.
Expats love to discuss things that are different in the new versus home country. What has surprised you the most about running a restaurant in Scotland vs USA?
VAT and Taxes in general are very surprising/confusing for me. I'm glad I have account[ant]s that take care of that for me haha.
You rely heavily on local, seasonal ingredients. Is there anything you want to try on the menu that hasn't been available since Avery opened?
I was asking our fishmonger for Jellyfish last year but haven't been able to get our hands on it yet. Honestly there is so much available in Scotland. I need to make a book so I can remember.
Why did you decide to relocate Avery from San Francisco?
After my wife and I got married we started planning our next move as a family. We couldn't decide on a city in America that we both enjoyed enough to move there, so I brought up an idea. What about the UK? That summer we set out on a road trip that started in London and worked our way up to Scotland. It is a similar story to Goldilocks trying to find the perfect porridge to be honest...
Edinburgh was just right. Great schools, closer to [my wife's] family, safe to raise a family, booming food scene, amazing food product, close to the sea and beaches, outstanding beauty and easy access to European and international travel.
When we got to the Scotland border you could see a wall of rain as we drove closer. I just remember laughing and saying, Scotland here we come! We ended up spending all of the trip in Edinburgh and just falling in love with the city. The history, architecture, art, welcomingness of the Scots, and the food scene was exactly what we were looking for. Once we got back to San Francisco I made a joke about going back to Edinburgh for Christmas and before we finished dinner we booked flights to come back. Fast forward two years, now we are here.
In my career I have always known of the quality of Scottish products like Langoustines and the wild game but as I was researching and working with other chefs in Scotland I was intrigued. Scotland has so much to offer. It's like the excitement of learning how to cook all over again.
Are you a whisky drinker, and if so, where do your tastes lie on the peatiness spectrum?
I do love a whisky now and then but the peatiness depends on the situation. I grew up on Kentucky bourbon but now I tend to enjoy a port cask or Sauternes cask whisky.
