BARCELONA'S El Bulli may be widely acknowledged as the world's best restaurant, but I've always had a bit of a downer on Spanish food.
Not, I hasten to add, that I have the remotest misgivings about tapas, which I could eat all day (and often do for a week each summer), but I'm fairly immune to the charms of the sort of mid-range Spanish food that you should be able to linger over f
or hours.
Sure, there are some notable exceptions, such as paella, but all too often classic Spanish cuisine is accompanied by rivers of olive oil. In the wrong hands, many Spanish dishes aren't just a little oily – they're spectacularly greasy.
Not that you could throw that accusation at Ignacio 'Iggy' Campos's venerable Edinburgh institution, Iggs, which has long been a beacon of culinary excellence. Yet, whether or not the capital's eating-out population agrees with my assessment of Spanish food, there's little doubt that back in the Nineties, the classic Iberian grub served at Iggs simply failed to get the punters queuing around the block. Maybe it just clashes with the Caledonian palate.
For a while, Iggy – who's from Aragón but has been in Auld Reekie for the past quarter of a century – succumbed to our tendency to prefer food that's within our ken by becoming, well, more Scottish.
Suddenly his menu sprouted all the things you'd expect at your identikit Scottish restaurant: monkfish, black pudding, sea bass, Aberdeen Angus and the rest. He hadn't exactly shot his unique selling point, but he had blindfolded, gagged and locked it in the shed at the bottom of his garden.
Fortunately, good sense has prevailed and the restaurant is reverting to its Spanish origins, thanks in part to the arrival of talented chef Martin Collins from Creelers. His festival menu demonstrates that Iggs can now be relied upon for local ingredients enlivened by Spanish flourishes that attempt to raise each dish out of the ordinary.
The end result is far better for the change and was proved by our main course, even if we elected to start with dishes that came from closer to home. I plumped for the monkfish with spring onion and mussel chowder, while Michael opted for the fish cakes served with a saffron alioli and dressed leaves.
My monkfish was beautifully cooked and enlivened by a creamy chowder studded with big, juicy mussels, while the fish cakes turned out to be two small parcels packed full and mercifully moist. Someone with a sure hand was at work.
If our starters were solid, our main courses were a notch up in quality and subtlety. Michael's seafood and shellfish stew with chorizo and ground almonds was a superb evocation of the cuisine of the Iberian peninsula. With its rich, dark tones and bundles of fresh seafood, this was the sort of dish worth travelling for.
It was also a total contrast to my salmon fillet, which came on a pungent pea and marjoram purée and was enlivened by the addition of morcilla cream.
If the quality of the food and wine (mine was a lovely white Rioja) on offer was the good news, my watch was giving me the bad news. The main reason why my journeys to Iggs are relatively rare these days is the amount of time it takes to be fed. Iggy and his crew are obviously aware of the problem, hence the "all of our dishes are cooked to order, your patience is appreciated" rider at the bottom of the menu.
Yet a call for patience cuts little ice at lunchtime when the office beckons, or later when the babysitter needs to be relieved. After two courses in a little over an hour and a half, we cast a wistful look at the tarta de santiago and the crema catalana and had to go. It was a disappointing end to a meal that veered from the solid to the exceptional.
Vital StatisticsIggs
15 Jeffrey Street, Edinburgh (0131 557 8184,
www.iggs.co.uk)
Out of pocket
Main course £17.95; two courses £24.95; three courses £29.90. (two-course lunch £15.95; three-course lunch £18.75)
Rating 7/10
The full article contains 706 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
