Three Birds — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

An exceptional restaurant with unusual staff and great food. The lighting is superb and may be the secret of why this place is so good. The decor is great too and there are lots of interesting things on the wall (see my photos).

The food must be the main reason for the success of this restaurant, and its little chain of similar establishments around the city. I only had one dish -- the fish of the day (sea bass) -- and it was really superb. Light, aromatic, subtle and delicous.

The waitresses chatted to us like we were old friends and this is unusual. Why don't more places do this? In most restaurants I feel they don't want to talk to me or, even worse, they put on a show of friendliness that is fake. Often I get the feeling they don't want to be there, they are above this sort of thing and they also don't want to be wasting their time talking to me.

I think one of the reasons for the surly undercurrent I feel in most restaurants is that waiting tables is considered a temporary or lowly job. Presumably they think that serving people is not a noble endeavour. But it is. In other countries the waiting staff take their job seriously, and take pride in serving others, and this comes across.

I've heard that most waiting staff in UK are hired on a temporary basis, paid peanuts and expected to move on soon. At Three Birds I suspect they pay properly and expect their staff to remain.

We were approached by a middle aged lady who is presumably the manager. She was as hardworking as the others but she spoke to us with a confidence that suggersted she had no fears about getting the heave.

We chatted and she told us she'd been there since the restaurant opened. She even came up with the name of the owner's new restaurant, on Broughton Street in Edinburgh, which is called the Educated Flea.

"The name came from a joke," she told us. The third restaurant in their group is called the Apiary.

This was her joke cum poem:

"Birds do it Bees do it Even an educated flea can do it"

I can just imagine the laughter this comment must have provoked.

I wonder how many people have had restaurants names after...

This cheerfully compact space offers a creative menu with well executed food, served efficiently in a relaxed atmosphere, and it’s located just a few steps from the main road in Edinburgh's Bruntsfield neighborhood.

My husband and I had a fantastic dinner and can enthusiastically recommend everything we had, starting with the amazing pistachio feta dip that we shared. I then had the grilled sardine served over caponata as my starter, and the seared scallops and crayfish tails in brown butter—listed as an appetizer on the Specials menu-- but I requested it as my entree. My scallops were hugely plump, perched atop a delicious sauce. The other starter on the Specials was an extraordinarily tasty curried cauliflower soup with shredded coconut and Kefir lime leaves. After this soup, my husband enjoyed the Chicken Milanese and the pistachio feta puree reappeared, this time as a warm dollop of accompanying sauce.

The portions were just the right size that I was able to top off my meal with a scoop of rhubarb strawberry sorbet. I found out too late about the chef's innovative marmite ice cream concoction that seems to have had the Internet abuzz. My bad, that means I'll have to return on another...

Very friendly atmosphere in this lovely restaurant. Very simple decor. Nothing simple about the food though. I started with duck ham, with a mouth-wateringly lovely vanilla bean and apple ketchup. So good. I then had the spicy llama - yes, that's right, llama. Not sure there are any other restaurants in Edinburgh you can get llama! Just the right amount of spice and flavour in the llama dish, which was accompanied by lentil dhal. I topped my meal off with a portion of the peach and pistachio cake, with raspberry and lemon frozen yoghurt. The cake was perhaps a smidgen dry in places, but the frozen yoghurt went really well with it and helped to combat any dry bits. Overall, a very enjoyable and tasty dinner experience. Would...