Outside Montrose all is quiet. This is residential Abbeyhill, one of the oldest parts of the capital. Though there are cafés and restaurants dotted about with Edinburgh levels of restraint, like gels across a tasting menu, it’s not exactly the heart of the city. Except now that Montrose has opened, it totally is. The wine bar and restaurant from the Radfords, the family behind the revered Timberyard, may be small but it’s a mighty opening for Scotland. And by God, it lives up to expectation.
The building is wonderful: cute, white, Victorian, with handsome windows and a mildly outré turret. It was one of Edinburgh’s first public houses and has since gone through a smattering of this century’s iterations: pub, yoga studio, café. The Radfords