Food & Drink: Crêpe Monsieur

During my first visit to Edinburgh last year, I was truly surprised by the number of restaurants in the city. But then I was just as surprised by the number of foods deemed acceptable for a deep-fat fryer (namely, anything). Do children attend school each day, I mused, with deep-fried apples in their pockets?

So instead I prefer to take my chances with the crêperie in Bristo Square. Sometimes life’s simplest culinary pleasures are the most enjoyable. Here one can enjoy breakfast, lunch or dinner, while observing the world. And, in a country that will not even reveal the ingredients of an unpronounceable orange fizzy drink, it is refreshing to see food being prepared right in front of you.

“A meal outdoors in Scotland, Marcel?” you enquire, “Surely this is a brave gamble, even for you?” Perhaps, yes, but if one can enjoy a cigarette or six while eating, really it is worth the risk of rain. And often one’s mobility becomes an important factor in avoiding the deathly wail of Scotland’s national instrument. Alors, nobody’s dining music should be the slow, prolonged castration of a goat.