Chef
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Wagyu beef with onion and black walnut
Martini
Lyla “I
HOLIDAY LIKE NEVER BEFORE
Lyla has been winning praise across the board for its homage to Scotland’s seafood. Rosie Conroy finds out how Stuart Ralston has made it stand out
strongly believe that you don’t have a million genius ideas as a chef in your lifetime – you’ve maybe got 30,” says
Scottish-born chef Stuart Ralston, reflecting on the change of tack he took when opening Lyla, his fourth Edinburgh restaurant and the final place he says you’ll find him behind the pass. This swan song is decidedly more him than anything he’s done before and the culmination of a career that spans decades and continents working for some of the world’s biggest names, including Gordon Ramsay. At Ralston’s first solo project, Aizle, the chef changed the menu daily, an approach he’s countering now with Lyla, where he says the billing will rarely rotate. “As I’ve got older the need for revolution is less, and I think evolving dishes to become better is now more impor- tant to me than constantly coming up with new things. Each dish has an individualistic charac- ter so nothing’s repeated. There’s a boldness to that which I think is memorable for people.” Creating 10 courses of distinctly different
food would be enough of a challenge in itself, but Lyla is fish-focused, making the pressure more intense. Ralston has a few tricks to ensure
38 | The Caterer | 22 March 2024
variation that range from limiting the quantity of flavours on each dish to presentation. “Crockery really lends itself to new dishes
and how you do things,” he says. “I’ve spent more time on crockery at Lyla than ever before – it sparks a lot of ideas.” One such dish is a langoustine served on a
footed stand that Ralston says inspired him to create a dish that you eat with your hands. His rationale is that cutlery elongates your reach, so if you’re going to eat with your hands, your food should be closer to you. Here the offer- ing is a single langoustine neatly wrapped in kataifi pastry which is deep-fried and then topped with grated, smoked and dried scallop roe that acts like a katsuobushi. This is served with mayonnaise, apple ketchup and herbs, for an equilibrium of salt, fat and acid. “When I first made it I wasn’t confident,
I said it’s way too simple. I didn’t think anyone would be impressed with it, but as soon as we put it on the menu everyone loved it.” Joining the surprise signatures is another seemingly simple dish and Ralston’s favour- ite thing to eat: bread and butter. “It was a total nightmare to get right. It took us three
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