Recipe for Success: Bistro Deluxe by Paul Tamburrini at Macdonald Holyrood Hotel

Partnerships between hotel brands and renowned chefs aren't a guarantee of success. It takes a lot more than well-known names and established brands for a restaurant to become unique. We believe Bistro Deluxe by Paul Tamburrini might have the recipe. 

Hotel News Scotland was invited to experience the restaurant soon after its official opening. The entire experience showed a lot more than a successful partnership, it showed the timely meeting of minds: a flourishing hotel brand with an invigorating attitude towards investment in its own people and an ultrautalented chef that has been for some time ready to fly higher. 

If you don't think there is anything special about Macdonald Hotels we recommend you pay more attention to it. Despite being the UK's largest independent hotel group, the family-owned company has kept the character and approach of a fresh and innovative small collection of hotels. They are staff and people focused investing a huge amount on training and doing some truly inspiring charity work overseas. The wellbeing of their staff is taken very seriously with even holistic health support available to staff. 

The company's senior management team listens to employees working in all positions at their hotels to make sure procedures never come before job satisfaction. Every time procedures get on the way of each member of staff doing their job as well as they can do, procedures are reviewed. 

The company is one of the few in Scotland to give chefs the option to work 4 days a week for the same pay, they give them the option to make sure they can deal with stress as well as possible. Giving staff the opportunity to express themselves and add value to the business is something the company realised the benefit of very early on. So, the fact that Chef Paul Tamburrini has been given the chance to completely recreate the hotel's restaurant as his own is only a reflection of how Macdonald Hotels work. 

The beautiful new 80 cover restaurant was the result of a £250k investment in the restaurant and bar area following a £3m investment across the hotel's 157 bedrooms, meeting spaces and ground floor area. It is elegant but informal, thanks to its very own staff who are naturally affectionate and communicative. Staff are clearly as keen on doing their bit to make the restaurant a success as Paul, his team and the Macdonald Hotels' Management team are. They are clearly passionate about the restaurant's concept and the freedom they have to express their own personality.  But above all, they are knowledgeable. Bistro Deluxe has amongst their team Peter Adshead, one of Edinburgh's best known sommeliers who until they opened was working at the Balmoral Hotel. We asked for a mocktail that wasn't on the menu with a few random ingredients and we were given something rather spectacular too. 

So, what about the food, that's what it all comes down to isn't it? The food is sublime. We don't say this lightly. We don't need to say it unless we mean it. Paul was already one of our favourite chefs for many years, from Martin Wishart to One Devonshire Gardens in Glasgow, he has been producing outstanding multi-award deserving dishes quietly.  The news that he was going to launch his own restaurant felt like Christmas, and we were delighted to be once again surprised by his fine ingredient choices and texture combinations. 

The choice of tableware really did add to the experience: the plates, glasses and cutlery are quite special and picked so that they are an extension of the food, consistent to the restaurant's style and atmosphere. We can't avoid mentioning the lighting as well which truly enhances the colour of the ingredients. Pay attention to it when you visit. 

Edinburgh has a number of exciting restaurants and much loved chefs entertaining locals and visitors. We confess that Paul Tamburrini's Bistro Deluxe is our latest favourite, it is the sum of all of the above. 

Bistro Deluxe by Paul Tamburrini
81 Holyrood Road
Edinburgh