Why Rodney Wages left California to open a restaurant in Scotland

Bundled up in my winter coat on a summer’s evening, it’s hard to imagine choosing to leave balmy California for Edinburgh. Still, Edinburgh has its charms and, if you squint, the Forth Road Bridge could be the Golden Gate Bridge? It’s this change of scene Chef Rodney Wages and family, and his Michelin-starred restaurant Avery, have made, relocating from San Francisco to sunny Stockbridge. After an extended family visit in 2022, Wages and his wife fell for our fair city, and the rest is history. 

You don’t book a table at Avery, you book an experience. It’s a set price and ranges from 10 to 14 courses. There’s no menu at the start but a hand-written one at the end, with broad descriptors like ‘caviar’ and ‘farm egg’ – it’s more of a souvenir than a road map. Inside the restaurant is dark and convivial, with sunny Californian art, and beautiful glassware and crockery. 

To begin, slivers of raw razor clam with grilled anchovy gel, a soft kuzu dumpling and a generous scoop of Oscietra caviar. The tender spoots have a delicate salinity in this simple form, the anchovy and caviar adding deep salty contrast. A langoustine is marinated in fermented pineapple and chilli vinaigrette bringing out its sweetness, it’s prettily served with pickled cherry blossom flowers. There are wafts of Californian sunshine in the flavour combinations, like the pineapple in the glaze on a delicious bite of barbecued eel, and Japanese influences in the raw fish and delicate flavour layering. 

(Image: Murray Orr)

Wages is also having fun with Scotland’s larder: initially I think my eel is sandwiched in shiso leaves. It’s nettles. A favourite course is ‘Bits and Bobs from the Sea’. The casual naming is a contrast to the elegant morsels of seafood and delicate sea greens swimming in giant hand-blown glass bowls. The joys of salty fingers, sea aster, scurvy grass and rock samphire bring a beautiful briny edge to the sweet onion soubise, and crispy sea beet is tasty enough to be a bar snack. In California the seasons are far less distinct Wages tells us; most produce is available year-round.

In Scotland he’s getting to know micro-seasons, the foragers’ calendar, and availability of wild game: “It’s challenging in a good way.”  We return to simplicity with tortellini in brodo, a dish Wages has had on his menus since 2016. Tiny tortellini filled with mushrooms and butter pop in the mouth, in a clear onion and roast garlic broth. A perfect plate of pasta. 

The thrills keep coming: turbot with lobster mousse nestled under the skin, and then a seemingly simple stack of sweet potato pancakes with maple syrup, nutritional yeast, toasted nuts and caviar. There’s a term in food science called hedonic escalation, when complex contrasting flavours create delicious and seriously addictive sensations. It’s when salty meets sweet, fatty meets umami. It’s what’s happening in this dish to a new level, the salty caviar, sweet pancakes and syrup, cheesy yeast and crunchy nuts. It shouldn’t work, but it does. From here the last dishes pass in a heady blur: a cheese and pecan tart, a woodruff and tonka bean custard with strawberries, then sweets: a miso tahini cookie, a black sesame financier, a wild currant tart. 

(Image: Murray Orr)

“It’s all about creating memories,” says Wages. “It’s about the whole experience, the place, the service, the music, the people, it’s not just about the food.” He’s right. This isn’t hushed, reverential fine dining, though with this skill it could be. Instead it’s a livelier, chattier affair. Loyal diners can become Avery members with tiered membership options that give you access to the larder and the cellar. Judging by the exceptional wines we tasted, that’s quite the perk. 

You can pack all your belongings, recipes and ideas, but Michelin stars can’t be moved, so will Avery Edinburgh win its accolade? We’ll have to wait until 2025 to find out, but with food this exceptional, Avery is surely a star turn for Edinburgh. 
averyedi.co.uk