The Voodoo Rooms19a West Register Street,
Edinburgh
(0131-556 7060)
The Bill Dinner for two, £52.80, excluding drinks
Calling a trendy new venue The Voodoo Rooms was probably a good move. The na
me conjures up images of vaudevillian goings-on (of which there are many here), mixed in with a little New Orleans-style black magic. However, a more palatable name for the adjoining Voodoo Rooms restaurant, which is run by the Devil's Kitchen catering company, under the supervision of chef Dario Pacifici, might've been a good idea. All I could think of, when visiting this new eatery, were chicken feathers, spilt blood and rattlesnakes. Not my favourite ingredients.
It didn't help that the restaurant, which is in a side room adjacent to the heaving bar, was deathly dark and as noisy as a hoodoo's sacrificial hut. I was spooked from the start. The Main Menu (there's also a French Quarter Canapés Menu and a Supper Club Set Menu), which was laminated with a stylised script, gave me bad vibes.
After squinting through the darkness at what was on offer (thank goodness there was a street-lamp outside the window), we gave our orders to the impossibly young and gorgeous waiting staff. I chose the spicy beetroot, avocado and shrimp stack, served with a house dressing (£6.70) and Rolf went for the organic salmon fillet with smoked paprika, crushed potato and mussel sauce (£6.90). The service was magically swift, which was just as well as we were told we'd have to vacate our table by 8pm, and we'd only arrived at 6:30pm. Sadly, there's not much to report about my shrimpy-stack starter, it contained all the paraphernalia that the menu explained it would contain. It's just that it didn't taste of anything. Nothing. My tastebuds were redundant. I was expecting a bit of Creole spice, as part of the whole theme-restaurant thing, but there was none to be found, just a measly smear of pesto on the side. Thankfully, Rolf's starter was marginally better than my choice, but still bland. It was a massive main-course-sized portion, and the salmon was beautifully textured and cooked. However, the chef must've dusted only one mote of paprika onto it. Like my starter, it didn't have any bite.
The glimmer of hope came with Rolf's main course which, thankfully, did have a few teeth. His chargrilled sirloin, accompanied by Lyonnaise potatoes, tiger prawns and finished with toasted pine nut brown butter sauce (£14.90) was smokily charred on the outside, and voluptuously pink on the inside. The naughty brown butter sauce was ladled all over the steak, keeping it moist. Although the scattering of prawns was a bit surplus to requirements, the pine nuts were a good contrasting texture with the juicy meat.
Meanwhile, I had been really greedy and chosen the double-cut pork chop on devil's bubble and squeak (£13.90). What arrived was a huge piece of meat big enough for ten hungry witchdoctors, perched on a pile of unpleasantly textured mash. I attempted to chew through the meat, in banqueting mode, pretending I was a cast member of The Tudors. But, in the absence of any nice flavours that might make we want to continue gnawing, I couldn't persevere.
Feeling demotivated and about ready to stick pins in the chef, we sipped on a gorgeously mellow and chocolatey bottle of South African Slowine Merlot 2004 (£22), munched on some of the complimentary breadsticks and olives we'd been graced with, and chose pudding.
As a glutton for punishment, I had to try the house special – voodoo dolls, which was devil's food cake served on a cookie base with caramel spears (£5.90), while Rolf went for the individual pecan pie served with vanilla bean ice-cream (£4.50).
Rolf was pretty pleased with his pudding – a properly sugary treat. His only grumble was one of confusion when he muttered, "this is more granny's tea-room than Voodoo Room". Still, there's not much complaining to be done when you're presented with a homemade pastry crust and a good dollop of double-cream.
Unfortunately, I had to wave my chicken-foot curse around again when it came to my dessert. It was a doll-shaped cake made from "devil's food" (a chocolate flavoured sponge which traditionally derives most of its flavour from cocoa butter, rather than real, lovely chocolate), squirted with red syrup (that's the blood) and decorated with caramel spears (those are the offensive weapons). They definitely got the visual effect just right but, as with so many faddish things like this, it proved disappointing: the cooking-chocolate flavour was unpleasant and none of the rest of it worked in harmony.
Oh dear, I definitely won't be eating here again. But, let's finish on an upbeat note, because we ended up staying until about 1am. The music, club and bar are fantastic. There's the lively upstairs bar in the beautiful Art Deco converted Café Royale and a louche, lounge-y downstairs bar called the Speakeasy. You can also sip some of the best cocktails in town, including the corpse reviver (£5.90). With Tanquery gin, cointreau, lillet, lemon juice and absinthe, served straight up with a cherry it was exactly what I needed after the food. So I'll be back for a good knees-up, if they'll have me. However, I'd rather stick pins in my own eyes than eat the grub here ever again.
The full article contains 925 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
