L'Escargot Bleu.

L'Escargot Bleu

The vegetables, salads and herbs come off the restaurant's own plot at Monkton Garden, and the beef and lamb come off pasture, certified.

Why go

Fred Berkmiller and his wife Betty have run this French bistro on Broughton Street for seventeen years, and the menu still goes up on a blackboard.2 Berkmiller took the growing in house because the wholesale route could not match it: THE BEST WAY TO KNOW WHAT I AM PUTTING ON A PLATE IS TO GROW IT MYSELF.6 The kitchen was the first in the UK certified by Pasture for Life, which means the beef, lamb and dairy come from animals raised on grass for their whole lives.2 Tom Kitchin names this room first when a visiting chef asks him where to eat, and the reason he gives is the buying and the game: hare and wild duck sit on the menu, and Kitchin's point is that few kitchens carry the repertoire for them.1

Order this / avoid

• Order: the game when the board carries it. Kitchin draws the line at the easy end of the category: I don't mean venison or rabbit, I mean hare, wild duck, the things you cannot touch unless you have a serious repertoire.1
• Order: the coq au vin or the beef tartare, which is where the French dish and the Scottish raw material meet. Kitchin puts it plainly: You go and have beef tartare or coq au vin, but it is Scottish chicken and Scottish beef.1 The coq au vin runs free-range chicken marinated and braised in red wine with glazed onion, lardons and mushrooms.4
• Order: the fish soup, which arrives with croutons, rouille and grated cheese to assemble at the table. Emma Newlands called it sensational, packing layers of flavour as deep as the ocean and led but not dominated by salty, crustacean-rich depth.4
• Finish with: the cheese, cut from a Mons affineur selection.4
• Avoid: building a day around lunch here. The kitchen serves it on Friday and Saturday only and takes its last booking at 2pm.2

What locals & experts say

• Tom Kitchin, chef-patron of The Kitchin (The Relisher, August 2026): the first of three rooms he sends every visiting chef to. The way he sources his ingredients is unbelievable. World-class attention to detail: the correct beef, the correct lamb, the correct shellfish. He reads the room as the last of a line: There really aren't many proper French restaurants left in the city. His own preference is dinner.1
• The Good Food Guide, Best Local Restaurant 2024, Scotland: named among the Edinburgh rooms still pulling in the votes in that year's nomination round, alongside The Palmerston. The Scottish award itself went to Fin & Grape, so this is a mention inside the roster and not a placing.3
• Emma Newlands, Edinburgh Evening News (July 2020), and the caveat is load-bearing: she ate the lockdown takeaway at her own table, reheating it on the kitchen's written instructions. The chicken has taken on an almost gamey taste, magnified by the gravy's intense depth of flavour. Betty Berkmiller took the order by phone and charmingly calculates the total out loud in French.4
• No current review of the dining room exists. The most recent bylined write-up is the 2020 takeaway above, so the cooking in the room is described here by the chef who eats it and by the house itself.

Good to know

• Timing: dinner Wednesday to Saturday, last reservation 8.30pm. Lunch runs Friday and Saturday, last reservation 2pm.2
• Booking: essential. Four dinner services a week in a small room does not leave much to walk into.
• Getting there: the top of Broughton Street, five minutes downhill from the east end of Princes Street. Pickles, the basement wine bar, is at number 60.
• The other room: L'Escargot Blanc, the same family's West End sister site, is a separate booking.2
• Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 19 June 2026.5

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: Not one of my saves. The case for it is a starred chef sending every visiting chef to this door.

Verdict

should-visit — Fred Berkmiller and his wife Betty have run a French bistro on Broughton Street for seventeen years, and the kitchen grows its own vegetables, salads and herbs at Monkton Garden outside the city. It is the first restaurant in the UK certified by Pasture for Life, which pins the beef, the lamb and the dairy to 100 percent pasture feeding. Tom Kitchin names it first when he is asked where he sends visiting chefs, and the reason he gives is the sourcing and a game repertoire that runs to hare and wild duck. The Good Food Guide had it among the Edinburgh rooms still pulling nominations in 2024. It stops short of must-visit because the only bylined review anyone has published in five years was of a takeaway box.