Chef Stuart Ralston’s Edinburgh restaurant empire includes fine-dining Lyla, and the more casual Noto and Tipo, as well as bars Vinette and Vivien. Having spent many formative years in New York working alongside chefs including Gordon Ramsay, and after a stint in Barbados, he returned to the less sunny climes of his native Scotland to open Aizle in Edinburgh in 2014. Lyla won a Michelin star in 2025.
Hi Stuart, what do you always have in the fridge at home?
Salted butter, good eggs, Dijon, parmesan, miso and some sort of chilli sauce. Sparkling water. If you’ve got butter, eggs and cheese, you’re covered.
What’s your go-to comfort food dish that you like to cook at home? And what do you cook after a shift that’s quick and easy, if anything?
Cacio e pepe. Properly done. Loads of black pepper, good pecorino, emulsified properly. It’s simple, but if you get it wrong, it’s rubbish. After a shift? I’m not cooking anything clever. Eggs on toast, grilled cheese, or cereal. You spend all day refining things; you don’t want refinement at midnight.
And what about breakfast?
If I’m training or at the gym, eggs for sure. If I’m just heading to work, then probably just coffee. Chefs don’t really operate on normal meal times.
If you hadn’t become a chef, what would you have been?
Something competitive like a sport. I wasn’t good enough to play football or ice hockey, but I loved them as a kid. I like winning, lol. Also, maybe something in art and drawing, which I never got to explore, but found interesting.
What’s the best restaurant you’ve been to lately?
The Ledbury. It’s serious. Technically flawless but still generous. No gimmicks, just very, very good cooking and top-class hospitality.
And, to put you on the spot, what’s the best dish you’ve ever eaten?
A langoustine dish at Frantzén [in Stockholm]. It looked like almost nothing, but it was perfect. That level of restraint is hard.
