Roberta Hall McCarron to launch third Edinburgh restaurant

Located next door to Hall McCarron and her husband and front of house counterpart Shaun's flagship restaurant The Little Chartroom in the space that was most recently home to wine bar Mistral, Ardfern takes its name from a childhood memory of a village in Argyll and Bute. 

The venture is billed as a ‘truly relaxed’ all-day experience offering brunch, bar snacks and heartier dinners alongside cocktails, draught beer and wine from its bottle shop. 

A day at Ardfern will begin with brunch, featuring a selection of Scottish staples such as a beef haggis tattie scone, fried duck egg, brown sauce and a full Scottish breakfast with thick-cut bacon, homemade haggis and tattie scones. 

Lighter options include overnight oats with fig jam and almond crunch, and BBQ flatbread with girolles, asparagus and mushroom marmalade will also be available alongside cooked-to-order filled doughnuts, pastries from Company Bakery and freshly squeezed juice.

Daytime will revolve around leisurely bites accompanied by cocktails and a carefully curated wine list of 100 or so bottles. 

Dishes will include merguez pâté en croûte, braised beef shin & Isle of Mull cheddar toastie and oysters served either naturally or with a seaweed hot sauce. 

As night falls, the menu will shift towards larger, heartier plates of food including shrimp and langoustine potato rosti; chicken kofta with date molasses, egg yolk purée and crispy chicken skin; and fish finger sandwich, mussel curry. 

The interiors at Ardfern will reference the landscape and colour palette of its namesake coastal village, evoking the feeling of warmth and comfort.

Dark wood and natural texture will establish a sense of place, the point of where the land meets the sea.

A mixture of counter and table seating will be available, allowing guests to linger at the bar or book a table in advance. The bar will also function as a bottle shop with wines available for purchase in-house or online, with options for nationwide delivery.

With a CV that includes time with Edinburgh-based chefs Tom Kitchin and Dominic Jack, Hall McCarron launched The Little Chartroom in 2018 and followed up with the more casual Eleanore in 2021. 

The Little Chartroom​​, which moved to a larger location in Leith in 2021, has been listed on Restaurant's list of the top 100 places to eat in the UK.