“The first restaurant was the original dream,” says Edinburgh-based chef and independent restaurant group owner Stuart Ralston. “I just wanted to work for myself. I didn’t want to work for other people anymore.”
Ralston, now 40, spent most of his early career in NYC working alongside Gordon Ramsay, leading him to become Chef de Cuisine at the world famous Sandy Lane Resort in Barbados, before returning home to Scotland.
“I actually applied for the Balmoral job, years and years ago, and I got turned down, so was like ‘I’ll just have to open my own f***ing restaurant’,” he laughs. “So that’s what we did.”
Despite its humble beginnings, said restaurant, Aizle, is now widely considered one of Scotland’s best restaurants.
“It was very casual. Just a few chefs, very stripped back and very much a sort of, like, bistro feel,” he says. “It was never really like that pressurized, but then I guess as time grew, and its popularity grew, the ambition grew.”
Noto—named after Ralston’s NYC friend and room-mate, Bob Noto.—came five years later, focused on food for sharing, small domaine wine producers, and bespoke cocktails. A little love letter to the chef-owner’s stint in America.
Unfortunately, an August 2019 opening meant the restaurant had mere months of business under its belt before the pandemic forced its closure. “We got hurt by COVID and that weird two-year period,” he admits, “but now it’s our site with the highest revenue. The smallest, with the most amount of covers.”
Forced to close Aizle’s original site during the pandemic, Ralston’s original dream was saved by an offer from the Kimpton Charlotte Square hotel to move the restaurant to its Garden Room, immediately increasing covers from ten to fifty per night.
“It changed the business, for the whole group, just having a much more turnover,” he says. “It’s a lot of food and there’s a lot of people, but it came at the right time, obviously. They’ve been very supportive of us financially and just letting us do our thing.
“The one thing I think that was slightly lost in the move was a little bit more intimacy, but that’s the way it had to be, you know. I had, at the time, like fifty staff to make sure were looked after. My priority was not so much about me and my feelings as much as keeping the businesses alive, and making sure they had jobs to come back to.”
tipo was next, opening its doors in March 2023 and debuting in the Michelin Guide just four months later.
With different concepts, at affordable price points, both tipo and Noto form the backbone of the wider restaurant group; there, people not only get a taste of what Ralston offers at Aizle, but the chance to eat his food more regularly, should they have already had the pleasure. And the wider industry was taking notice.
Shortly after the opening of his third concept, the owners of a beautiful building on Edinburgh’s Royal Terrace (once home to the late Paul Kitching’s Michelin-starred 21212) got in touch.
“I wasn’t definitely wasn’t interested in opening another restaurant at the time,” he says. “We had just done tipo, and I felt like it was more than enough.”
Still, the owners—including Kitching’s partner, Katie O’Brien—persisted, offering him a no-compromise deal; a restaurant designed how he wanted, with the kitchen he wanted, no compromises. “It was too good a deal to pass up,” he says.
After four months of hard work, Lyla opened in October 2023 as 28-cover seafood-focused tasting menu restaurant and the reviews, as expected, were nothing if not raves.
Lyla is simply Ralston at his best. Here, he pairs lobster with bone marrow and sake; Chawnmushi with smoked trout and marigold; chocolate with barley koji and chicory root. It’s his signature—dishes that celebrate the very best in nature, finessed with unexpected East Asian flavors and techniques.
“It was stressful, but we really wanted to get it open by the end of the year” he says. “We didn’t want to have to wait another year for stars, Michelin guides, all that kind of s****,” he grins, knowing full well there are a umber accolades likely to be bestowed upon Lyla in the coming year.
And still, after building a four-outlet restaurant group in under ten years with no outside investors, Ralston struggles to see himself as a successful businessman.
“I’m more of a chef than an entrepreneur,” says Ralston. “I’ve got a few restaurants but that doesn’t mean it’s my expertise. I’m winging it most of the time. I don’t have any investors so it’s just me making decisions most of the time.”
Today, the group boasts a gross turnover of around £5 million ($6.36 million) per year, a team of 110 staff, with hundreds of thousands of pounds a month in wages.
“Obviously, if you f*** up, you’re going down very quickly,” he laughs, coming out of his sixth day of work in a row.
Admittedly, he’s working at a pace that can’t be maintained long-term. “I’m already suffering from it,” he says, “but I still feel very passionate. I don’t have to be here, but it’s important to me that people see me here working.”
In his own cheffing history, Ralston felt disappointed by chef-owners who would come into their restaurant for a few hours in the evening, but leave most of the work to their teams. “It’s like, can you kind of live in a lie at that point? To be honest, you’re not a chef anymore if you’re not in the kitchens anymore. You won’t see me doing that for a long time.”
As Aizle approaches it’s ten-year anniversary next year, Ralston lists many-a potential future for himself; growing his restaurant group, designing restaurant concepts for up-and-coming chefs, consultancy, et al.
“There’s no master plan, but with enough Michelin stars behind you, there’s not a lot you can’t do,” he smirks.
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