Lunch: Starters £3, Main Courses £6.50
Tucked away down a leafy New Town street, L’Artichaut is sister restaurant to the justly celebrated La Garrigue on Jeffrey Street. Aiming to blend traditions of French rustic cooking with a vegetarian regime, a potentially incompatible pairing, it presents a good choice for a two course meat-free lunch at just under £10 (a wee bit more if you fancy a dessert).
On entering, the first thing you notice is the green wall décor, liberally sprinkled with paintings of different shapes and sizes featuring, of course, artichokes. This is very much a restaurant which wears its emblem as a brand. The feel is “modern rustic”, down to the matching furniture and crockery, lending the impression of being in a 21st century farmhouse.
The lovely waitress provides us with some excellent olive-studded bread to begin with, before our starters arrive. My warm asparagus, of both the green and white variety, with poached egg and hollandaise vinaigrette is a classic summer dish. Well executed, but, then again, it would be pretty impossible for any decent restaurant to get wrong. Mother has a pleasant if slightly bland carrot terrine, unfortunately accompanied by some pickled vegetables which seem to have been dunked in malt vinegar for 24 hours, making them almost inedible.
This hit-with-the-odd-miss approach continues with our mains. I’m very satisfied with my robust spicy black bean stew with chicory and spiced cauliflower, but Mother’s globe artichoke and green bean salad comes absolutely soaked in over-vinegary dressing, as well as missing a couple of vital ingredients mentioned on the menu. On mentioning this to our still lovely waitress, however, a replacement salad with less dressing is immediately offered.
Slightly breaking my own rules, I finish with a marvellous strawberry and honeycomb sundae which takes me over the £10 limit. But it’s worth it, like eating a Crunchie with fresh strawberry fondant.
As a committed carnivore, I can’t help feeling that a vegetable-only variant on French rustic cuisine is impossible. I come away thinking how much better it could have been with a bit of meat. This is perhaps doing L’Artichaut a disservice, however. Unlike celebrated local vegetarian restaurants such as David Bann’s and Black Bo’s, which admittedly make lack of flesh and fish an unnoticed virtue, L’Artichaut offers a good lunch deal for diners on a budget. You’ll get extremely high quality ingredients with excellent service and ambience presented in a relaxing setting. And hopefully slightly less vinegar.