Seafood | Bouquets & Brickbats

28/01/23

The Shore, Leith

It’s a Saturday night and friends have invited us to dine with them at The Ship on the Shore, a bustling, friendly venue in Leith which describes itself as a ‘seafood restaurant and champagne bar.’ I don’t have anything in particular to celebrate, so I eschew the champagne and settle for a couple of pints of Peroni, but seafood? Hell, yes – lead me to it!

As you might expect, the place is packed but the team here are friendly and efficient so ordering and receiving our food is no bother. We make our selections and settle down for a convivial chat, which – let’s face it – is an important element in most meals.

For starters, I opt for the salmon and smoked haddock fishcakes. There’s something so innately comforting about fishcakes, isn’t there? And these are splendid examples of their kind, large, perfectly cooked and full of flavour, served with a mixture of mushy peas and tartare sauce. Susan opts for steamed Shetland mussels, another generous portion, nestled in a golden broth of cider, garlic and herbs. As ever, we sample a mouthful of each other’s food. We’re also impressed by the hot and cold Scottish smoked salmon, ordered by one of our companions – so much so that we decide to use a photo of it, because it’s much more photogenic than my main course!

It might not look much, but my seafood pie ‘Royale’ is perfectly delicious. Some so-called ‘pies’ can comprise a few scraps of fish hiding in mounds of mashed potato, but, happily, this is not the case here. Beneath that crisp, buttery surface there are chunks of smoked haddock and salmon, there are king scallops and big, juicy prawns. Susan’s seafood chowder is also a bit of a wonder: thick, creamy and featuring all the usual suspects plus some less obvious ones. Added to the salmon, smoked haddock and queen scallops and prawns, there are also mussels and squid. It’s like an aquarium in there!

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that after such a feast, we wouldn’t be able to face up to pudding? But here’s the thing. I’ve deliberately eaten barely anything all day in preparation for this. Plus, there’s a sticky toffee pudding on the menu and I don’t know what it is about me, some kind of inbuilt reflex, but whenever those words appear on a menu, I nearly always have to try it (though, in this case, I do manage to negotiate replacing the vanilla ice cream accompaniment with a scoop of salted caramel, because… why not?) Suffice to say, that I take the dish on and utterly vanquish it, which is, I think, a testament to my determination. Susan’s berry cheesecake is also pretty sumptuous – and so rich she can’t quite finish it, but we’ll let her away with that one.

Anybody who relishes good seafood will be glad they visited this cheery, welcoming restaurant – and those who ‘don’t do seafood’ should bear in mind that The Ship on the Shore also offers a rib eye steak, and, for the vegetarians, there’s a butternut squash risotto with blue cheese and toasted pine nuts. Seafood fans, though, will have an absolute field day.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

22/12/15

Thistle Street, Edinburgh

This restaurant came highly recommended and seemed like the perfect place to enjoy a pre-Christmas meal with a couple of friends. The venue was warm and welcoming, arranged on three levels, with subtly twinkling Christmas lights and friendly and attentive staff.

Annoyingly (at least for the purposes of this review) all four diners opted for the same starter – the Twice Baked Crayfish Fondue, though there were several other temptations on offer. This proved to be a delight, rich, creamy and peppery, served on a bed of fresh rocket with tangy smoked tomato relish. It was simply delicious and all four portions were quickly polished off.

The main courses ended up as a 50-50 split. Two of us opted for the Fillet of Peterhead Halibut. The perfectly cooked fillet was served on a couple of spinach and ricotta rotolos, the pasta deliciously al dente, the layers of spinach rich with the tang of iron. There was a splash of orange and sage dressing to set the whole thing off perfectly. The other two diners chose the Whole Roast Sea Bass. Again, the fish perfectly cooked, the flesh falling from the bone and served with the head on, this came accompanied by a pea shoot pear and fennel salad, with a pecorino, maple syrup and caraway dressing, which was light and refreshing.

Did we have room for dessert? Well, it is nearly Christmas! Once again there was a two way split on this – two of us opted for the Chocolate and Hazelnut Tart, which was dense and rich with bitter chocolate and came with a slice of salted praline crunch and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The other two diners had the Pear Parfait, a sweet and delicate confection served with liquorice jelly and mulled pear sorbet.

We drank a couple of bottles of a very decent house white and we all announced that we would recommend Fishers In The City as a lovely place to meet and eat.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney