Tony Sarton is the Executive Chef at Twenty Princes Street in Edinburgh. Opened in 2013, the restaurant has quickly made a name for itself by using a wide range of Scottish produce in innovative ways.

The hard work of Tony and his team was recognised last year when Tony Scooped the Chef of the Year title at the Scottish Hotel Awards.

As the name suggests, the restaurant has a prime city centre location. Located on the first floor of the Royal British Hotel, the striking interior decor of the restaurant gives way to huge windows that look across Edinburgh city centre to the Castle.

As Tony and his team bed in the new spring menu, the 5pm Dining blog had a chat with the chef about dining room theatre; Scotland’s natural larder and the time he nearly fell out with the Queen’s corgis.

Twenty often runs very tasty 5pm offers. You can check them and book in via the restaurant’s 5pm entry.

Today, you can enjoy a 30% discount on the a la carte menu.

You might also want to book in to Twenty Princes Street for their imminent Nose to Tail Winemaker Dinner.

Taking place on Wednesday 18th May, from 7pm, the evening will feature a five course dinner with five wines from Ferghettina Franciacorta.

To complement the wines, Tony has created a fabulous Nose to Tail menu showcasing innovative and inventive pork dishes. Tickets are £60 a head.

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

TS: It’s all about the produce. We pride ourselves on using Scottish produce in the restaurant. For me, it’s not that there is a Scottish way of doing it or that there is a Scottish way of making a particular dish. It’s about using Scottish produce in a way that lets it sing for itself.

At the restaurant, we want to enhance that quality and embrace it. We like to have a lot of customer interaction with the food, little bits of ‘oooh and aaah’, a bit of wow factor.

For example, we bake a whole sea bass in salt, crack it at the table, take the meat off and present it on the plate. We use a little dry ice with one of our desserts. We also smoke all our own venison and present it under a smoke-filled cloche. We like a bit of theatre.

 

In the past, some restaurants in hotels have had a perception problem. Twenty has avoided that. How?

TS: We’ve made sure that we are not classed as a hotel restaurant. We are Twenty at the Royal British. As you say, things change. If people visit city centres, especially in Edinburgh, there is such a wide choice of restaurants that they don’t necessarily eat in their hotel restaurants any more.

Perhaps dinner, bed and breakfast packages are almost something of the past? Having said that, we do get people who stay at the hotel because they want to eat in the restaurant which is great as well.

What got you into cooking to begin with?

TS: Being in the kitchen was all I ever wanted to do. Even at a young age, I tried to get Dad to buy me one of those Fisher Price toy kitchens. I remember cooking cakes and peppermint creams with my sister. It’s just something that I always wanted to do. We didn’t go to restaurants so I’m not sure where the love of it came from.

Along the way, you’ve worked in some notable places.

TS: When I was at college, I wanted to spend my summers doing something interesting so I applied to The Ritz and Buckingham Palace and spent a summer working between both. I wanted to do something a bit more hard-hitting than, say, Exeter airport.

What brought you to Scotland?

TS: I came up here from London to open a restaurant in Glasgow and then I met a girl.

I also came to realise how good the produce is in Scotland and how much of it is right on the doorstep. The natural larder in Devon – where I’m from – is pretty impressive but the natural larder in Scotland is immense.

Is there any food you hated as a kid but love now?

TS: I hated sprouts then and I still don’t like them now. My palate has probably gone more savoury over the years. I used to be a massive sweet fiend and now I’m probably more on the savoury side.

Over the last ten to fifteen years, I have found a love of cheese. I didn’t hate cheese as a child but wouldn’t have gone for a Stinky Bishop or an Oxford Isis, something quite heavy and blue.

What is your favourite ingredient to work with?

TS: I’m from a little town just outside of Exeter. I’m a South Coast boy and probably because of that I’ve always been fish oriented. I’m an avid sea fisherman. Whatever I catch, I take home and cook.

What do you like to eat on a night off?

TS: I do cook at home but I also like going out and seeing what other people are doing. We have a baby so getting a night together when me and my partner can go out can be quite difficult.

Is there anything you don’t like cooking with?

TS: Not really. I’m quite experimental. I would say that I’m creative and adventurous in the kitchen. Different products come in and, even if I’m not a massive fan of them, I can see where they would fit in and have a place on the menu.

We have a few interesting flavours on the menu that other people might not put together. We have a scallop and lobster dish which we serve with apple consommé and vanilla. We also do crab with rhubarb and pink pepper jelly. We are quite experimental. We play with flavours and make sure that we get the right one. We don’t just take two flavours, smash them together and hope for the best.

You can get anyone in the world to cook you a meal. Who will it be?

TS: Marco Pierre White or Tom Aikens.

What is the best thing about being a chef?

TS: Every day is different. I worked in a contract catering kitchen. It didn’t have that buzz of service. I missed it.

I had to get back into a kitchen for the thrill of service. When you get that blinding service and everyone in the kitchen is there with the same goal. At the end of it, everyone is happy and you walk out with your head held high and you’re like ‘Yeah, we did it.’

And the worst?

TS: The hours can be hard but there are ways to make it better. The hours are still long but I have put all our staff on four day weeks so they work four and have three off. They do get a better quality of life. As a result, they’re happier, more productive and staff retention is better. It means that we can all spend more time with our families. We don’t have to do 80 hours a week and burn ourselves out at a young age.

You have a magic wand. What one thing would you change about restaurant work?

TS: I would love to be able to close on a sunny day. In Switzerland, they have snow days when they can shut. We should have a sunny day.

What’s been your worst kitchen disaster?

TS: It’s not really a kitchen disaster but one incident led to me being given the nickname Corgi when I was at college.

We had to cook for the dogs at Buckingham Palace and they would be fed rabbit and so on. I was chopping up some meat for the dogs and the chunks were too big. The sous chef came up behind me took one look at what I was doing and shouted ‘They’re Corgis. Not Rottweilers.’ After that, I was Corgi for the next year and a half.