Edinburgh’s Quartermile is an open air tardis, filled with luxury apartments, offices and restaurants.  It’s not an area we’ve spent much time exploring, which is surprising given its close proximity to a number of Edinburgh Fringe venues.

No.8 Lister Square

We headed down to No. 8 Lister Square, a gastrobar from the people who brought you Steak, Twelve Picardy Place and Beer and Skittles, to sample their steak and shake offering.

The sleek glass-fronted bar was buzzing when we arrived and, now that the sun is making a regular appearance after work, we imagine the crowd will only get larger in coming months.

The restaurant is a much more relaxed affair, although able to accommodate a large number of diners it seemed the bar was the main attraction on our visit.

Steak and Shake

A reasonably priced Steak and Shake menu is on offer from Sunday to Thursday, between 4pm – 7 pm. For £10 you can tuck into 150g of rump steak with chips and a classic milkshake, the steak is served raw alongside a lava stone as hot as the sun.

Much like sister restaurant, Steak on Stones, diners cook their steak at their own table. After a sprinkle of salt on the hot stone, we placed a few slithers of steak and waited a few moments for the magic to happen.

Initially, the interactive style of dining was good fun, but as we worked our way through the meat we found that it started to stick to the stone and what was left began to burn. I can’t help but think a little oil, or maybe a little butter, could have helped avoid this – there’s rarely a situation that isn’t made better with butter.

The creamy milkshakes were a pleasant treat which tasted like my childhood, I’d forgotten how often I used to drink strawberry milkshakes growing up.

To accompany our steak we had a portion of chips and some blue cheese sauce. The chips were perfectly acceptable, but the sauce seemed to keep the blue cheese a secret, we even had to ask the waitress to double check with the chef. We were told that it definitely was blue cheese but strangely didn’t have any follow-up questions, the service was one of the weakest points during our visit.

The aftermath of our cooking adventure wasn’t a pretty sight and we were glad to see the back of it. If returning to No 8 Lister Square, we’d probably avoid this if we saw it on the menu. We’d prefer the same quantity of meat, cooked in the kitchen. I know this defeats the purpose, but for us cooking on the stone is a bit of a gimmick and one that resulted in our clothes smelling of charred meat.

At £10, it’s a still a pretty good deal and one that will no doubt appeal to students in the area.

No.8 Lister Square
Simpson Loan, Edinburgh EH3 9GL

Our bill was covered by No. 8 Lister Square. 

The post Steak and Shake – No.8 Lister Square appeared first on EdinBraw.