Scotch Whisky Experience is fun experience fro whisky lovers or novices like us, the location is on the same street that leads to the Edinburgh castle.

When the visitors enter the museum, they are invited to visit the shop which is expertly and beautifully displayed with all types of bottles and products based on the whisky flavors, but also souvenirs and paraphernalia from Scotland.

The tour started with a « Barrel Guide »  which involves jumping into a (clean!) “whisky barrel,” and riding your way through the production stages in a “whisky distillery.”

At the Scotch Whisky Experience, they’ve integrated the background information into a ride, using video and sound to capture the visitors attention with the key information of each stage, in a very clever way, and it did hold the attention much better than a typical speech from a tour guide.

Once the ride is over, the visitors moved into cinema room where a film will feature different landscapes and regions where whiskies have been produced through out centuries. 

When the film is over,  our guide invited us to the nosing and tasting area for an introduction to the five Scotch producing regions — Highlands, Lowlands, Speyside, Islay, and Campbeltown, and to work at discerning the differences in terms of taste and aroma.

Our guide introduced us to the four main regions, and helped us through the aromas using the scratch and sniff and some actual whisky.

After the nosing, it’s time for tasting the Scotch and we have to choose which region we wish to taste by putting our whisky glass on the color that represents the region on the card that has been handled out to us by our guide.

The highlights at the end of our experience, we are invited to enter into hidden place that houses the world’s largest collection of whisky, and where we can marvel at each of the 3,384 bottles displayed.

The best is for the end our visit when the guide informed us that we can keep our beautiful glasses in which we had tasted our whisky.

Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre

The Royal Mile, 354 Castlehill

Edinburgh EH1 2NE, UK

Telephone : +44 131 220 0441

www.scotchwhiskyexperience.co.uk

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Dean Banks at the Pompadour was remarkable fine dining in Edinburgh, it located in one of the most famous hotels in the city, the Waldorf Astoria Caledonian.

To fully experience our romantic evening, we went for a cocktail drink first at the beautiful and stylish Peacock Alley that set in the heart of the hotel.  After our drink, we walked slowly to the grandiose stairs to Dean Banks restaurant. 

The restaurant itself is wonderfully blue turquoise and it has a small blue boat that indicated that the sea is not far away, and that we will be tasting some great seafood for our dinner.

Once seated near the magnificent windows with a view on the Edinburgh castle, The head waiter handled out our blue book menu which has two menus, a Classic one (Six courses tasting) and a Chef’s Signature menu (8 courses tasting). 

For our dinner, we chose the Classic menu, from the snacks to the dessert, every dish was perfectly presented, cooked, and enhanced by the freshest products and ingredients.

Dean banks’ cooking is inspired by Asian flavors, like his hand dived scallop with Dashi and Kimchi or his grass-fed beef cheek with ponzu and sesame.

The wine is list is wonderfully eclectic from the cheapest bottles to the most expensive ones, wine lovers have the choice to enjoy a wide range of great wines.

The service was very nice, helpful, and professional at the same times.

With Dean Banks at the Pompadour and Aurora, we had two outstanding meals in Edinburgh for our romantic weekend.

Dean Banks at the Pompadour

Princes Street Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh - The Caledonian

Edinburgh EH1 2AB, UK

Telephone : +44 7770 451668

www.deanbanks.co.uk

Aurora at 187 Great Junction Street is an unlikely place for a high dining. The location is not very sexy or trendy, it’s part of Leith residential area. It is certainly not the place where you would expect to come across a fine dining restaurant. The restaurant could be easily missed if you are not careful enough and a peek through the window would reveal a narrow, high ceilinged room with minimal decoration and lighting.

We were glad that we had discovered this little gem of 18-cover restaurant. Once inside, the setting was minimalist and simple, but had a good vibe and atmosphere.

Our host and sommelier showed us our table of two and from there he handled us the menus, one for drink and one for the dinner. The degustation menu was £60 for six courses, and it came with amuse-bouche and petit fours as well.  You can add £50 for a wine pairing or £30 for non-alcoholic drink pairing.

The menu was incredible, each dish was like a little bijou, perfectly calibrated and cooked, each bite was delicate and full of flavor. The ingredients were dosed with balance and flawless technical mastery.

Kamil Witek’s cooking was inspired by Asia and Mediterranean flavors and ingredients which he masterly assembled into his creation.

The wine list and the drink list were quite impressive for a small restaurant. Even though, we did not order wines we had only order the non-alcoholic drinks like house-made bergamot & yuzu lemonade and rose petals & hibiscus iced tea.

The service by our sommelier and waitress was very nice, cool and easy going.

This meal was of one our best so far, we wish we could have a gem like Aurora in Paris. 

Aurora

187 Great Jct St, Edinburgh EH6 5LQ

Edinburgh EH6 5LQ, UK

Telephone :+44 131 554 5537

www.auroraedinburgh.co.uk