It’s time for an Easter roast

One positive thing about home working is not having to field unusual phone calls.

There have been a few interesting ones.

The regulars were from those on holiday to bonnie Scotland. They wanted some activity suggestions, because every newspaper has to double as a travel agent.

Then there was the man that rang the office to ask if I could recommend a carvery.

It wasn’t really my forte, and as I listed all the ones I knew, he became increasingly irate. They weren’t right. Each was met with a “no”.

“Call yourself a restaurant reviewer?” Then he hung up on me. Lovely.

I should have made somewhere up - a fantastic place, every Sunday at 1pm, it’s up Arthur’s Seat, and there’s a strict lederhosen and flippers dress code.

Anyway, it’s the time of year when people want to know about carveries, for their Easter family meet-ups. The phone is ringing off the hook in my imaginary office.

Luckily, the restaurant in this five-star-hotel has just relaunched its traditional Sunday roast, after an extended period of lockdown closure.

It’s £35 for adults, £17.50 for three to 12 year olds, and under threes eat free.

For starters, you order drinks at your table - we went for a glass of Monopolio Durello Spumante, Cantina di Gambellara, Veneto (£8) and Moulin a Vent, Château du Moulin a Vent, Beaujolais (£12.75) - then head up to choose from the spread. This is done to a soundtrack of jazzy tunes, like Abba’s Money, Money, Money, from the live band.

I really thought Covid had rendered the buffet extinct, yet here we are. Of course, like all feasts of this ilk, you get the cornucopia, to appeal to your hunter gatherer greedy ganglion, but you compromise on quality. It’s just the way it is. The limbo pole of my standards had already been lowered a notch.

There is a decent deli counter selection here, with salad, chunks of Feta, boiled egg, olives, sliced meats, pickles and chutneys, tarts, smoked salmon, rollmop, and glasses filled with beetroot hummus and crudites, chicken liver parfait and other goodies.

“It’s a rich man’s world”, to paraphrase Agnetha.

One Square, Edinburgh, review - we try The Sheraton's newly reopened carvery in time for Easter