Everyone’s talking about the lip-smacking Bonnie & Wild Scottish Marketplace, the food hall and casual dining experience at heart of the new St James Quarter in Edinburgh where guests can choose from changing menus provided by food businesses with a focus on seasonal and locally-sourced ingredients.
Leading Scottish restaurateurs will rub shoulders with the award-winning team behind Glasgow’s first patisserie and a fine-dining fried chicken start-up led by a Heston Blumenthal-trained chef.
Food stalls will be operated by The Gannet, East PIZZAS, Joelato, Erpingham House and Creel Caught, the new seafood concept launched by BBC MasterChef: The Professionals winer Gary Maclean.
Stefano Pieraccini, director of the Edinburgh-based Rocca Group of restaurants, is launching Rico’s Pasta Bar and joins Anna Medjanskaja and Artem Podburtnoi who are bringing their Broken Clock Café and Patisserie to Edinburgh after successfully building up their Glasgow business over the past two years.
After a surge in demand for Broken Clock’s seasonal artisanal cakes during lockdown, Anna said she had been considering a move to Edinburgh when the opportunity at Bonnie & Wild came up.
“At the heart of our philosophy is we need to enjoy what we eat, while also being committed to using locally sourced ingredients of the highest quality,” she explains. “This is something I know is important to Bonnie & Wild and the other food businesses coming into the Food Hall.”
Using ingredients such as Belgian chocolate and fresh Scottish fruits, Broken Clock’s cakes will change to reflect the seasons while coffee aficionados will enjoy their brew sourced from Loch Lomond Coffee Co.
Rico’s Pasta Bar, the latest offering from the family-run Rocca Group, and start-up CHIX, run by Max Murray and Ed Cresswell, who was chef de partie at Heston Blumenthal’s three Michelin-starred Fat Duck.
Stefano Pieraccini said: “Despite all of the challenges of the last year, we’re always looking for opportunities to grow the Rocca Group further. When the chance arose to take a food stall in Bonnie & Wild’s Scottish Marketplace, I knew I had to grab it with both hands.
“This is an exciting opportunity to bring something very different to Edinburgh city centre. I want Rico’s Pasta Bar to be a place where guests know they will get excellent, authentic Italian dishes made with the freshest local ingredients.”
CHIX’s head chef Ed Cresswell said he was looking forward to giving fried chicken a fine-dining makeover within the more casual Food Hall setting at Bonnie & Wild. “CHIX is a completely new entity and concept,” he says. “We’re bringing a refined and classy approach to this wonderful dish, but enhancing it with an unrivalled range of innovative and complex dips and sauces that will tantalise people’s palettes.”
Meanwhile, Glasgow’s Jimmy Lee, renowned for the city’s Lychee Oriental, is opening Salt & Chilli Oriental Edinburgh in the Scottish Marketplace.
The celebrity chef will dish up Cantonese street food that is “reimagined, remastered and given a playful twist” and comforting Chinese classics alongside fusion concoctions, mixing conventional Hong Kong street food with a strong dose of modern Scottish attitude.
Jimmy, who has appeared on BBC’s Great British Menu and as a judge alongside Prue Leith on Channel 4’s My Kitchen Rules, already operates Salt & Chilli in Glasgow’s west end.
MasterChef winner Gary Maclean is also heading east to open his first solo dining experience with Creel Caught. The casual dining spot will champion Scotland’s exceptional seafood paired with seasonal ingredients with headline dishes include lobster Thermidor mac‘n’cheese, grilled langoustines with seaweed butter, and monkfish scampi with fries.
“This is set to be a Food Hall like no other and it’s precisely why I chose Bonnie & Wild as the location for my first-ever solo dining venture,” says Gary. “Creel Caught will showcase the very best seafood this country has to offer, something we know diners can’t get enough of.
“Being alongside the likes of Mac & Wild and East Pizzas is testament to Scotland’s incredible food scene. We all offer something different, something for every taste but all with Scottish produce at the heart.”
The Gannet is one of Glasgow’s best-loved restaurants. Famed for its commitment to Scottish fine dining, founders Peter McKenna and Ivan Stein are passionate about sourcing the best seasonal ingredients from local and small suppliers from foragers to farmers to artisanal producers.
“From the moment we heard about Bonnie & Wild’s Scottish Marketplace we knew it was a perfect fit for The Gannet,” says Peter, who is The Gannet’s head chef. “The venue is stunning. The finish, the concept, and the food and drink offering are all first class. I’m excited The Gannet is going to be one of the key food offerings within it.”
Bonnie & Wild Scottish Marketplace will offer eight food stalls, three bars and four speciality retailers including a butcher operated by MacDuff 1890 a bottleshop run by Inverarity Morton.
Find out more at www.bonnieandwildmarket.com.
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