Amber

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• What are these?

• Average price 2 courses:
   £9.95 (set lunch)
   £25 (evening meal)
• House wine: £12.95 per bottle

• Hitlisted
• High point: Perfectly-cooked local beef
• Low point: Not enough room for another whisky cocktail
• Food served: Sun-Thu noon-3.45pm; Fri/Sat noon-3.45pm, 7-9pm
• Private dining: 20 or 70
• Open since: 2004
• Also offers: Vegetarian options (at least 25% of menu), Childrens portions, Childrens high chairs, Wheelchair access

The List's Eating & Drinking Guide 2008 is now in the shops.

This review is from the 2007 edition.

This gem of a restaurant may seem to cater to tourists, being, as it is, slap-bang on the trail, but it is quite a find and well worth the trek to the Royal Mile for locals. Set beneath the Whisky Heritage Centre and close to Edinburgh Castle, the plain yet elegant dining room sits alongside a wonderful whisky bar (with nearly 280 varieties of the amber liquid). If you don't know - or don't like - your whisky, you'll still enjoy a fabulous range of whisky-based cocktails prepared by the exceedingly knowledgeable staff. All the dishes on the extensive menu show a strong Scottish influence and are derived from local and mainly organic produce. Starters include pink woodpigeon matched with smoky bacon and baked figs, and a hefty slice of prawn and monkfish terrine that perfectly blends the meaty textures of the two. For main courses, be prepared for meat that is of the highest quality and cooked to perfection, including saddle of venison or fillet of Buccleuch beef. Desserts can be a bit hit or miss - a poor crème brûlée lets the kitchen down, but a tart, sticky marmalade ice-cream almost makes up for it. The wine list nearly matches the whisky in its breadth. If ever a restaurant strived to encompass all that is great about Scottish cuisine, Amber is it. They're as serious about their whisky as they are about their food, and, fortunately, not everything on the menu is drowned in it.