For the last three months, Stuart Wood has been the new Head Chef at MP’s Bistro in Edinburgh’s Parliament House Hotel.

An Edinburgh native, Stuart’s cooking has taken him from the five star Queen’s Hotel in Cheltenham to seafood restaurants, brasseries and luxury hotels in Greece, Spain and France. Most recently, he was working on Scotland’s West Coast.

MP’s Bistro have just launched their new autumn menu which demonstrates Stuart’s style of cooking – founded on classic techniques but with a modern twist.

You can try Stuart’s cooking with their 5pm offer. They are currently offering two courses from the pre-theatre menu plus a glass of wine for £17.50.

Can you describe the style of food served at the restaurant?

SW: It’s food that everyone knows done as well as it can be. It also has a modern twist. I like to use modern techniques. We change the menu every six weeks to keep it nice and seasonal.

Is there a most popular dish for your customers?

SW: We do a dish of Scottish lamb rump with garlic and rosemary. It is served with beetroot, braised baby vegetables, fondant sweet potato and a red wine reduction. That dish is flying out of the door.

We get a lot of guests from overseas and they love to try Scottish ingredients and dishes. We had a haggis starter on the last menu and that was one of the most popular dishes.

What got you into cooking to begin with?

SW: I started washing dishes when I was fifteen in my local pub restaurant for a few extra quid. I started off chopping veg and then I would do the starters and then I did my apprenticeship. The two chefs who I have working for me here started as kitchen porters.

What is your favourite ingredient to work with?

SW: I love getting wild mushrooms in. Proper, foraged mushrooms – chanterelles and ceps – not cultivated ones. When I was in Oban, we used to do a lot of foraging for mushrooms and wild herbs. I really got into that.

I like cooking with fish as well. When I was working on the Mediterranean, we had access to so much great seafood.

What do you like to eat on a night off?

SW: I like Asian food but I’m actually booked in to The Table. It’s a restaurant on Dundas Street. It has one table with ten seats and the chef cooks in front of you. I’m really looking forward to that.

Which chef has inspired you?

SW: I like using modern techniques to create foams, fluid gels and hot jellies. Of course, I had seen it on the telly and then the last head chef that I had was heavily into it. He is a French guy who had trained in Michelin star restaurants. He showed me how to do some of the techniques. It was really interesting. More science than cooking.

Is there anything you don’t like cooking with?

SW: There isn’t an ingredient that I don’t like to work with. I don’t like to cook really typical, cheap pub food. I don’t eat it and I don’t cook it.

What has been the most exotic thing you have eaten?

SW: It’s not so much exotic as expensive but I ate Kobe beef when I was working at a five star resort in Greece. It had its own marina and we did a private dinner for a yacht party. There were ten guests, all paying £600 each. They wanted wild mushrooms and truffles and Kobe beef.

 

A lot of our guests had a lot of money and weren’t afraid to spend it. We would have some guests who wanted the very best of everything and then we would have guests who wanted burgers, lasagne, steak pie.

What’s been your worst kitchen disaster?

SW: I was working Christmas Day at another restaurant. I was the Junior Sous Chef. The Head Chef was off and the new Sous Chef had yet to start work. The Head Chef was to have ordered in all the food we needed so it should have been fine. On Christmas morning, I went in to start the prep and there wasn’t enough food. There was six turkey crowns for about 200 bookings.

We were on an island and couldn’t just phone one of the big suppliers like Campbells.

I was phoning around all the local butchers and they only had frozen turkeys. That day felt like it went on forever.

What has been your most memorable meal?

SW: When I was eighteen, I was in a resort in Orlando and I ate in a restaurant which was on a riverboat. I had a fillet steak with Alaskan king crab claws. That was phenomenal. It was the best fillet steak I have ever had and the crab claws were amazing.