Stockbridge · Edinburgh

Bracken

A chef-led tasting menu of the Scottish larder. Seven courses over one evening, cooked on the fire and carried to the table by the people who made them.

Wednesday to Saturday · Seatings 18.00 and 20.30

Philosophy

What the season sends

We cook what the hills, the shore and the walled garden send us, and nothing we cannot name.

Bracken is a small room above a cellar in Stockbridge, built around a single fire. There is no menu to choose from. Each morning the kitchen writes the evening from whatever came in: creel boats at Newhaven, a walled garden in East Lothian, deer from an estate we can point to on a map.

Most of the preserving happens in the months when the larder runs thin. Shelves of ferments, vinegars and salted things carry the winter, and the smoke from the fire touches nearly everything, including the butter.

  • Twenty two seats
  • One menu, seven courses
  • Fire, smoke and patience
A chef finely chopping herbs on a wooden board

The tasting menu

Seven courses

The menu moves with the season and reads differently most weeks. Tonight it reads like this.

Tasting £85 · Wine pairing £65 · The whole table eats together

  1. I

    Sourdough and crowdie

    Rye sourdough from the morning bake, whipped crowdie, heather honey from the Pentlands.

    Dark rye sourdough loaves dusted with flour
  2. II

    Cured sea trout

    Shetland sea trout cured in beetroot, buttermilk, sea buckthorn from the dunes at Gullane.

    A fillet of cured fish plated with greens in a dark bowl
  3. III

    Sprouting broccoli

    Charred over the embers, smoked bone marrow, cold-pressed rapeseed oil.

    Green vegetables in a dark pan with oil being poured over
  4. IV

    Partan bree

    Brown crab from the Newhaven creels, mace butter, pearl barley.

    A shellfish broth in a deep bowl with rice and herbs
  5. V

    Roe deer

    Perthshire roe deer rested over the coals, charred beetroot, elderberry.

    A dark seared cut of meat glazed with jus
  6. VI

    Raw milk and oats

    Raw milk set cream, toasted oats, bog myrtle honey.

    Set cream desserts in small glass jars
  7. VII

    Chocolate and malt

    Dark chocolate, malted barley from a Leith maltster, sloe gin poured at the table.

    Slices of dark chocolate cake with glossy ganache

Dietary requirements are welcome with notice when you book. The menu takes around three hours.

Portrait of the chef in whites and an apron, arms folded
Chefs working the pass in a dim kitchen at night

The kitchen

Ailsa Morrow

Ailsa grew up on the Black Isle and cooked in Copenhagen and Lyon before coming home. She opened Bracken in 2021 with three shelves of preserves, a wood grill she welded herself and a conviction that Scotland's larder needed no imports.

The kitchen is four people and everyone serves. Whoever finished a dish brings it out, says what it is in one sentence, and leaves you to it.

“A menu is a letter from wherever you are standing. Ours is written from the Firth.”

Ailsa Morrow, chef and owner

Beyond the room

The Bothy and the cellar

A warmly lit dining room with empty set tables

The Bothy

A panelled room off the cellar for eight to fourteen guests, with the full tasting menu, a fire of its own and a door that closes.

From £95 a head · Wednesday to Saturday

A glass of red wine beside dark grapes

The Cellar

Five hundred bins under the dining room, old world leaning, with growers we have eaten with. The pairing is poured from whatever is singing.

Pairing £65 · Corkage £30, two bottles at most

Reservations

A table at Bracken

Tables are released three months ahead, on the first Monday of the month. Two seatings a night, twenty two covers, and a few seats at the pass held back for the same week.

Book by email 0131 496 0221

Hours

Wednesday to Saturday
Seatings 18.00 and 20.30

Sunday to Tuesday
Closed

Find us

14 St Stephen Street
Stockbridge
Edinburgh EH3 5AL

Good to know

Cancellations need 48 hours.
Children welcome at the early seating.
No dress code beyond warmth.