Chef Rodney Wages brings Avery to Edinburgh from San Francisco
The 15-course tasting menu will change regularly to celebrate the ‘best’ seasonal ingredients, with a particular focus on Japanese cooking techniques
Acclaimed American chef Rodney Wages is set to open his first UK restaurant, Avery, in Edinburgh’s Stockbridge on 21 May.
Avery Edinburgh is the evolution of Wages’ Michelin-starred restaurant of the same name which opened in San Francisco in 2018.
In 2023, Wages decided to close Avery San Francisco and move the restaurant across the Atlantic to Edinburgh, having “fallen in love” with the Scottish capital on a family holiday the year before. Prior to opening Avery, Wages honed his craft at some of America’s “best” restaurants, including The French Laundry, Benu, Saison and Atelier Crenn.
Wages’ cooking takes inspiration from the sea and the wild, as well as the “imaginative” style of the restaurant’s namesake, American artist Milton Avery. Hand-crafted tableware is used to “complement” the flavours, textures and aromas of each dish.
The 15-course tasting menu will change regularly to celebrate the “best” seasonal ingredients, with a particular focus on Japanese cooking techniques.
Avery’s menu combines menu mainstays from San Francisco with new creations inspired by the fruits of Scotland’s land, sea and air.
Signatures include Tortellini in brodo; handmade tortellini filled with a broth of cultured butter and mushrooms, served in a broth infused with roasted garlic, burnt onion butter and chives; and Cheese tart, a reimagining of a classic pecan pie with toasted pecans, honeycomb, cognac and sharp Loch Arthur cheddar.
Also on the menu is Æbleskiver, a Danish pancake filled with Scottish spider crab, grilled Swiss chard and roasted garlic; Live scallop with cherry vinegar, preserved cherry blossoms and raw sesame; ‘Bits and Bobs from the Sea’ with poached mussels, grilled langoustine and fresh cockles sitting in a seaweed and chorizo broth and Gorse-infused custard on a vanilla genoise with macerated rhubarb, raspberry and cognac sauce, mint oil and herbs.
Wages will be working closely with Scottish suppliers to bring local produce to Avery’s menu, particularly foraged ingredients, game and seafood from Castle Game, Wee Folk of the Woods, The Free Company, Fungi and Forage, Woodwinters and David Lowrie.
Additionally, a champagne-forward wine list complements the menu, with particular attention given to French, Italian and Californian wines. Sake is also central to Avery’s drinks programme, with an extensive selection in the cellar to be paired with the menu.
The intimate, 20-cover restaurant combines dark paintwork with “bright” accents of colour from paintings by San Francisco-based artist, and friend of Wages, Victor Reyes. Ceramics, tableware and furniture have all been brought over from America.