Argile
21 Argyle Place, Edinburgh, EH9 1JJ
Internet: www.argilerestaurant.co.uk
(online bookings only)
The Menu:
Grilled asparagus croustade
Orkney scallop tartare
Jack’s sourdough bread with home-churned butter
Slow-cooked egg
Dry-aged monkfish
Venison kobujime
Tête de Moine
Sake lees cream
Chestnut and hōjicha Mont Blanc
The Wine:
Domaine de L’Idylle Crémant de Savoie Extra Brut NV
Domaine de Veilloux Romorantin (Vin de France) 2020
It is good to eat out from time to time. To leave one’s own kitchen behind, open the front door, and step out into the wide world on the hunt for dinner. In doing so you enjoy experiences – sights, sounds, smells and flavours – that you would never encounter at home.
A case in point; if I had not ventured out to dine at Argile, I would never have walked across The Meadows (which, for those unfamiliar with Auld Reekie, is the city’s principal ‘green space’, where friends and families gather on sunny days). And it was only by walking across The Meadows that I encountered what appeared to be an impromptu open-air circus school. I stopped for a moment and watched as a few hardy souls tried their hand at walking the tightrope, the ‘rope’ in question a heavy-duty webbing strap secured between two trees. One adventurous person made an exceptionally good go of it; as the webbing oscillated from side to side, so did the walker, their hips and arms swinging in synchrony with the swaying of the rope. And they held their position, for a short while at least, before stepping off. I was impressed by the performance.
As it turned out, watching others perform turned out to be the theme for this evening.
I continued my walk across The Meadows and five minutes later I arrived at Argile, a small ‘chef’s table’ restaurant on Argyle Place. The chef in question is Jack Montgomery, a widely travelled soul who has worked his way across Europe in his trusty Toyota Aygo, putting in stints in Les Jardin des Sense in Montpellier and Restaurant Alain Chapel in Lyon along the way. Add in some training as a professional butcher, as well as a stint working front of house gaining an understanding of wine into the mix, and Jack was ready to set up his own place. Argile – French for clay, or course, although I can’t help thinking its position on Argyle Place was more significant in naming it – was born. Jack runs this ship with a small team; Scott helps out front of house, while Thomas beavers away out of sight.
I took a seat at one of the bar stools – I think there are only ten, although I confess I forgot to count – up against the counter behind which Jack and Scott work. Much of the cooking is done on the rear surface, using a diminutive Konro grill, essentially a small Japanese indoor barbecue, powered by smokeless Binchotan charcoal. This is intimate dining, Jack and Scott prepping and grilling all within arms reach, before popping each plate up on the counter for you to devour.
What follows is a cavalcade of dishes which range from delightful to deliriously good. After my first ever glass of Crémant de Savoie (more on the wines in a moment) we kick off with the grilled asparagus croustade, a crisp and crunchy case made from sourdough discard, filled with a delicious base of whipped burrata supporting a chargrilled asparagus tip and some diced stem, spiced with piment d’Espelette. The asparagus spear looks heavily charred but the flavour is good, and the cooking turns out to be spot on. Combine that with the light and airy burrata whip and the crunchy case, and this was an ideal first bite. Well two bites, anyway.
Scallops arrive on the counter. Sourced from Orkney that day, they are diced into chunks and dressed with an emulsion of Gordal olive juice and oil infused with young fig leaves. The scallops are divine, with a clean and subtle flavour, while the olive milk – as Jack calls it – has eye-popping definition and vibrancy. I enjoyed this dish much more than I expected to when it materialised before me.
I was expecting egg next, so it was a surprise when a small sourdough loaf – made from a five-year-old ‘pandemic’ starter (it turns out Jack was not immune to the sour dough craze that erupted during the first Covid lock down) – appeared, still warm within its own cast-iron lidded loaf tin. And there is butter too, home-churned, Jack buying in the cream which he cultures, churns and salts himself, using Maldon sea salt, dosing it to a 1.25% strength. Which, in case you did not already know, is equivalent to French demi-sel.
By the way, I haven’t suddenly become expert at sour dough bread and butter-making, it’s just that from his position behind the counter Jack will tell you in detail about what he does, so you will leave Argile feeling like you have had a crash course in, well, everything to do with running a restaurant, from the cooking, to choice of plates and dishes, and of course that Konro barbecue.
I am, though, expert at bread-and-butter-eating, and I prove this without even standing up from my counter stool, by scraping the butter dish clean, and sending back the loaf tin with not a crumb remaining.
We are only two courses (plus bread) in, and in truth the best is yet to come. The slow-cooked egg which eventually materialised offers a window onto Jack’s philosophy and character; his approach to his self-training in the kitchens, restaurants and boucheries of France was patient and methodical, and his cooking is the same. The eggs are slow cooked at a modest temperature, an easy-to-remember 63°C for 63 minutes, and served with lardo, the back fat from acorn-fed Iberico pig, with a dusting of schimimi tōgarashi, a spice mix of sesame, seaweed, citrus and Japanese sanshō peppercorns, all topped with a little Nori seaweed. At this point it is already delicious, but what really lifts it to an orgasmic level is the 96-hour onion broth poured around the egg. Onions gently cooked for four days liberate this dark, delectably umami-laden broth that could possibly compete with Tokay Essencia for it’s power to reanimate a Czar on his death bed. Yum.
I enjoy the dry-aged monkfish, served with braised fennel, dried tomato with chamomile oil, mussels and lobster cream, even if I find the monkfish a little too firm for my taste, and the fennel – braised in mussel juices and duck fat – a little too al dente. But fennel can be a difficult vegetable to get right, and truth is if I had served this up at home I would be rightly proud.
The venison kobujime was next. If you haven’t already guessed from the menu – with its dry-aged fish, tōgarashi, kobujime and the like – Jack is recently returned from Japan, and Japanese themes and ingredients are woven through his current menu. Kobujime is an age-old method for curing fish, typically using konbu, edible kelp to you and me. Having spent some time on Rùm, one of the small isles of the Inner Hebrides, Jack observed wild deer eating seaweed on the shoreline, and from this experience grew this dish, combining venison and kelp. Which tastes much better than you might imagine. Thin strips of roe deer loin are cured in the kelp, basted with venison fat and black garlic paste and barbecued at high temperature on the Konro grill, then served with an onion soubise sauce along with braised kohlrabi, confit citron and dulse. The venison is tender and finely cooked despite the searing heat of the grill, and there is a light autumnal feel across the dish which brings it all together, the only intrusion the occasional pop of that zingy and zesty citron on the palate. This is a delicious dish (although I think I might leave out the citrus, but that’s just me).
Oh, by the way, if you thought cooking eggs for 63 minutes and onions for 96 hours is all a little extreme, you should know that Jack makes his own black garlic paste, roasting the garlic in house, at 60°C.
How long for? For a month (well, 37 days, to be precise), of course.
We finish with a trio of cheese and dessert courses. The cheese, an optional course which I failed to resist (I write that as if I actually tried) was Tête de Moine, which behaved on the plate like – wait for it – Tête de Moine. In other words, delightfully fine, creamy and lightly nutty, and very easy to eat. What really lifted this dish was the dehydrated grapes on the side. I confess I am not sure how long these were roasted for – maybe seven years? – but the effect was divine, the grapes exhibiting a concentrated, confit, sticky sweetness which provides a welcome contrast to the gentle richness of the cheese.
The first dessert was sake lees cream, a mousse made using sake kasu, the lees which remain after rice fermentation, layered with strawberries cold-macerated in elderflower, topped with meringue and dusted with lemon verbena powder. This was wonderfully bright and fresh in style, the sake kasu fresh with touches of tropical fruits and a little lactic tang, which worked well with the bright strawberry notes. This was followed by a chestnut and hōjicha Mont Blanc, a play on the classic French dessert, built from a tiny financier layered with a salted butter caramel laced with kinako, a roasted soy flour, then coated in a parfait of candied chestnut, chestnut honey and hōjicha (green tea). The caramel, chestnut and cream flavours all worked well together, the green tea note suitably subtle, a distant hint of interest rather than anything domineering.
The wine list at Argile is a delight, broad with good choices at various price points, in a variety of styles, and I was impressed by Jack’s obvious knowledge of the list and its contents. I get the feeling he knows each and every wine on it, quite an achievement given it stretches over more than a handful of pages, but then I suppose he needs something to do while waiting for his garlic to roast. Both of my choices took me a little out of my comfort zone, albeit in different ways.
A non-vintage Extra Brut Crémant de Savoie from Domaine de L’Idylle was a little too fat and lacked precision for my liking, with a rather delicate and faded crémant mousse, but it had plenty of fruit.
And while I could have stayed on safe ground with a Loire choice from Château de Plaisance, Château Pierre-Bise, Henri Pellé, Luneau-Papin or Vincent Delaporte, I found myself drawn to a 2020 Vin de France Romorantin from Michel and Arnaud Quenioux of Domaine de Veilloux. It has been too long since I last met up with Michel or Arnaud, and so I figured I would take a look at what they have been up to in recent years. As it turns out, the answer is making wine in an increasingly oxidative style. Not really my thing, but with a little air it tightened up in the glass, and in the end this worked well enough with almost all the dishes.
While dinner at Argile was not the least expensive dinner I have eaten recently, the thoughtful approach of Jack Montgomery and the skills exhibited more than justify the price. This was a great dinner, with no duds passed up to the counter, and a couple of the dishes were absolute superstars, in particular that slow-cooked egg and its gorgeous onion broth, and the venison too, although the asparagus, scallops, strawberries and chestnut Mont Blanc were also top notch.
Indeed, it seems like Jack Montgomery is something of a cooking factotum; any ingredient, any style, any dish, he seems to succeed in everything he turns his hand to.
I’d like to see him try his hand at tightrope-walking on The Meadows though.
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