No matter what fish, fowl or foraged fungus turned up on the day, it would issue from Norn’s kitchen transformed into something ravishing
There’s a moment when you realise you’re in the hands of a special talent: at Norn, that moment arrives with the butter. Small and insignificant in the scheme of a seven-course tasting menu (eight with the unannounced extra of a tartare of ripe, fruity tomato dressed with oil, chive flowers, salty little capers, lovage and croutons), it sets the tone for an extraordinary meal. Homemade, bright and yellow as its namesake flower, the sweet tang from its culturing is as stirring as good wine. Don’t tell me this is “just” butter; it’s so much more than that.
Norn (not, apparently, the result of trying to say “northern” after a few drams) is an austere little restaurant in shades of chilly grey, the only punctuation the open kitchen and a lot of carpet (carpet! In a contemporary restaurant? Whatever next: curtains?). But the room could be hung with Old Masters and they’d still be upstaged by what’s on the plate. Because the food here, from chef/owner Scott Smith (ex-Peat Inn near St Andrews), is beautiful.
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