Malmaison Brasserie

This review appears in the The List's Eating & Drinking Guide 2008 – in the shops now or buy online.

This boutique chain hotel restaurant has its own separate entrance, and as you go inside you are thrust from the sunshine of Leith waterside into a dark, enveloping atmosphere. It's more like a gentleman's club, with studded leather armchairs, leather place mats, leather-edged menus and wooded tables and floors, with subtle low lighting and candles. Pale green olive oil, French bread and black olive tapenade are dangerous appetite-reducing diversions on the table. The à la carte menu takes you through the gamut of French brasserie cuisine, from crispy pig trotters – presented as discs of sophisticated sausage rather than anything a pig could trot on – to hamburgers, steak and pasta. Sea bass with chive crème fraîche is more successful than roast pork belly, which puts up a firm resistance to the fork. Vegetables, such as buttered kale and pommes dauphinoise, are priced and served separately. Crème brûlée is luscious custard under a freshly soldered warm sugar veneer. The wine list is a good range of international wines, 23 of which come by the glass. The 'home-grown and local' fixed price menu is good value with in-depth information about local suppliers.

• High point: Those lovely leather chairs
• Low point: The surroundings on some occasions may outshine the food