Tigerlily

With 33 rooms of acclaimed boutique grooviness upstairs, & the award-winning bar-club Lulu in the basement, Tigerlily is not just a restaurant. A hotel-cum-eaterie-cum-nightspot in a refurbished Georgian townhouse, it opened in central Edinburgh in summer 2006 to instant acclaim. In the exuberant ground-floor diner, fusion food chimes in with a designer interior, where starters could entail a chunky seafood laksa (coconut noodle soup) or charred, skewered prawns with a viscous teriyaki dip. Further fishy mains might bring red mullet on courgette & potato salad, or a platter starring half a lobster. Alternatively, you could try rack or lamb with minty creme fraiche or duck breast with wok vegetables & mango salsa. Puddings are pretty sweet (white chocolate, pecan, & caramel cheesecake, for instance), while the wine list is categorised by strapline – ‘fantastically fruity’, ‘sensually spicy’. Service is enthusiastic & while Tigerlily is hardly an understated night out, it has found a good-time niche in the Scottish capital.