“Aizle rhymes with hazel”
Situated on the ground floor of the Kimpton hotel in Edinburgh, Aizle presents a changing menu that evolves throughout the year to highlight fresh and seasonal ingredients found in the area. Their 8-course tasting menu is not revealed until the day of your reservation due to how this extreme seasonality can affect availability of ingredients from one day to the next.
While we were overall satisfied with our meal, the experience could have been improved in some areas. Some dishes felt disconnected from each other, while the service was surprisingly slow for a day when several tables were still open. We waited upwards of 30 minutes between some courses, bringing the total meal to just over three hours long.
Unfortunately the first dish of the evening was my least favorite. Similar to how some people perceive cilantro as tasting like soap, others are sensitive to a chemical in beets–geosmin–that cause the vegetable to taste strongly like dirt. The tartare croustade did not pair well with the saltiness of the seaweed nest on top. The mackerel roll was the best of the three, but the salty snack fell short when following the already salty croustade.
Candied seaweed nicely offset the saltiness of the caviar, although the dish was too large to eat in one bite while also being awkward to cut into smaller pieces.
Easily my favorite dish of the night! This might be the greatest lamb dish I’ve ever tasted. The quality of the lamb was impeccable, with such a light flavor devoid of the usual associated gaminess. The exterior was unbelievably crisp, while the inside was still exceptionally tender with the fat rendered completely. The provided herb bouquets were used to stir a small cup of mushroom soup, further infusing the soup the flavors of the herbs.
The crispiness of the puffed buckwheat paired well with the tender artichoke.
A fantastic intermission in the middle of the meal. These rolls were fairly sweet, balanced with flaky salt.
This was my first time eating monkfish, which I enjoyed. I found the texture to be more “meaty” rather than “fishy”.
The duck was a little bit tough and could have been rendered a bit longer. The skin was incredibly crisp though. Again the beetroot in the accompanying croustade fell flat.
An excellent pre-dessert. The yogurt sorbet had a wonderful and unexpected sourness that punched through the sweetness.
A classic pairing of chocolate and orange flavors, with a hint of earthiness from the pumpkin.
Conclusion
Aizle has created some really fantastic looking dishes which unfortunately suffer from a lack of cohesive ingredients. The dishes that did hit the mark really excelled, while the others fell a bit short of a truly harmonious culinary experience. I believe Aizle could benefit from paring back a few of their dishes–while each very technical in nature, some of the flavors were lost in the sea of ingredients.
Overall, I’m glad we visited and we certainly enjoyed our meal. It would be hard for me to recommend Aizle though, especially with such strong culinary competition in Edinburgh within walking distance.
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