SETTING On a prime corner site on the edge of Princes Street, The Rutland Hotel is a cool, contemporary lifestyle complex for drinking, dining, dancing and dreaming. Enter the snazzy all-day café/cocktail bar, dressed in leather and chocolate brown velvet. Upstairs is the glamorous crimson and black Restaurant, a lavish ballroom space divided into banquette seating, round booths for party groups and intimate tables for two.

FOOD Fresh Scottish produce is emphasised across the enticing menu – Loch Etive Mussels, Orkney crab, Aberdeen Angus beef, Borders rabbit – all creatively given a flavour of the Mediterranean by Head Chef David Haetzman, whose cooking style is inspired by a childhood in Spain and Italy. This is observed immediately when we are offered soft home-made bread, a dish of olives and hoummus, an unexpected healthy appetiser before our starters. I begin with three tender seared Tarbert scallops, placed in a neat row in between three shitake mushroom discs, on a bed of cauliflower puree. Also sampled was the Dunsyre Blue cheese tart – perfect thin, crisp parmesan pastry, filled with plum tomatoes and rich red onion marmalade.

To make me feel I was in Sardinia, I chose linguine with marinated seafood and grilled langoustine, a mountain of mussels, prawns, crayfish, squid, topped with two langoustines, all delicately drizzled in herb scented oil, with almost al dente, pasta ribbons. My companion meanwhile was happily munching his way through roast rump of Scottish lamb, served with a salad of peas, broad beans and potatoes and an inventive summery cucumber, mint and garlic dressing. The wine list folder is impressively long, so we asked Gregor, our attentive and helpful Maitre d’ / Sommelier, to select individual wines per course. To accompany my linguine, I enjoyed a glass of juicy, jammy Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and for the lamb, my friend sipped a deliciously smooth organic Rioja Tempranillo.

To finish we chose fine cheese with homebaked oatcakes, and a colourfully artistic Rhubarb Tart – which tasted as good as it looked. No wonder, for its luxurious decor, romantic mood and fabulous designer food to match, The Rutland was named the ‘Most Exciting Restaurant’ in the Scottish Hotel of the Year Awards 2009.