Bonnar’s at The Scott: Fine dining, Scottish produce, and Edinburgh competition

Situated in the shadow of Arthur’s Seat, Bonnar’s offers a sophisticated and welcoming atmosphere to any guests visiting it in Edinburgh’s Southside area. Blending the warmth of traditional Scottish hospitality with contemporary haute-cuisine, Head Chef and Noma alumni Pier Berretta is showcasing the best of modern Scottish cuisine, with an emphasis on fresh, foraged, and locally sourced ingredients.

Despite only being open a few months, Bonnar’s has lofty ambitions – as Group General Manager Gavin MacLennan explained to us.

“The name itself comes from a gentleman called Thomas Bonner, who was an interior designer and architect,” said Gavin. “He designed The Scott Hotel in the 1700s, including the ceiling fresco, and his name is still visible on parts of the building and brickwork. He has never been recognised or celebrated for being the designer of the hotel, so we decided to name the restaurant after him.”

“The Bonnar’s concept was a fine dining restaurant with a tasting menu. But we knew hotel guests might not always want that experience, so we also offer an À la carte menu. Our Head Chef Pier Beretta knows what he’s doing with both.”

New and traditional, Scottish and Italian

Italian-born chef Pier Berretta has taken the helm from within the kitchen at Bonnar’s. Using local produce and inspiration from his hereditary Roman countryside, the dishes created for each menu surprise and delight guests in both traditional and unexpected ways.

“Pier’s flare obviously has an Italian thread running through it, because of his heritage. He's also been doing quite a lot of local foraging himself; I’ve got a great picture of him up a tree on this estate looking for ingredients,” explained Gavin.

Pier understood Gavin’s vision for Bonnar’s instinctively. “I didn’t have to explain it – we just gave Pier the freedom. We built a brand-new kitchen – my father was a chef and he would have died of jealousy if he’d seen this kitchen – and he's making his own sorbets and ice creams. He's fermenting everything. He's foraging, he's doing all that stuff, it's really fascinating to watch.”

“You'll see on our menu, he’s created a dish focused around baby gem lettuce. When we sampled it, we generally expected - let's be honest - a bit of lettuce, you know, like on the side of your salad. But he created this most spectacular sauce for it, and it's become one of our most popular dishes. When we can actually say one of our most popular dishes is lettuce, it’s tremendous. He’s definitely getting copied in other local restaurants.”

Breaking into Edinburgh’s dining scene

The hotel itself is one of four owned by the University of Edinburgh, who are the largest landowners in Scotland. Despite this, the concept of Bonnar’s represented something new and risky for the University’s properties.

“We kind of went out on a bit of a limb. If I'm honest, because the university have never done anything like this before, they were unsure that a fine dining restaurant would work in a university-owned hotel. But I didn't really see it like that - I saw it as a fine dining restaurant opening into the foodie scene of Edinburgh, which is spectacular.”

“We've now partnered with quite a lot of local suppliers – and that really is what this is all about. The university has a very clear mission about being carbon neutral by 2030, so we’ve undertaken a lot of work with certain departments of the university, around sustainability and local food produce, so we've also been able to strongly connect with that part of the concept.”

First steps: Partnering with TheFork

Bonnar’s made the decision to partner with TheFork based on the platform’s reputation in the UK. Gavin revealed some of the early success they’ve had after being listed.

“Competition is huge in Edinburgh. The quality is incredible, so just getting your name out there as a newer restaurant is a big challenge. That’s on top of rising costs of supplies – sometimes you have to make a loss on some dishes just to compete.”

“But we are getting bookings with TheFork. It’s early days, but we have been very pleasantly surprised. We’ve had a number of guests who have found us by searching “fine dining” on TheFork, sometimes the day before or even the day of booking. We had a table of fourteen book recently – it was a guest who had just passed the bar and wanted to celebrate with his friends. He found us on TheFork and booked the same day. That wouldn't have happened if we hadn’t partnered with TheFork.”

With Edinburgh’s rapidly expanding culinary scene, there are a lot of booking platforms for restaurants to choose from – but Bonnar’s selected TheFork for several vital reasons.

“It’s the credibility and the quality of the platform. It seems to me that it’s more selective. There's a lot of other platforms you go on, and you get offered everything. It becomes very difficult to navigate and know what's good and what's not, whereas I do feel TheFork is partnered with some excellent establishments. I do hear from customers, and also colleagues within the industry, that they use TheFork because they always find great places to eat and drink.”

“Our account manager, Amelia, she’s just so supportive. With other platforms we’re listed on, we often just get left alone. But with TheFork, we’re always being looked after.”

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