An omelette and a glass of wine

It is time that someone in Edinburgh had the courage - and the flair - to open a good  omelette bar. The menu would be simple and obvious. A handful of omelettes and a choice of a few nice French wines by the glass. Though wine experts say that eggs and wine do not mix - they say the same about wine and cheese -  such assertions can be safely ignored. As Elizabeth David said, they mix perfectly well if you are happy (as I usually am)  with the idea of combining them.

Apart from that, the premises would have to be right. Somewhere small, accessible, and intimate, somewhat French in feeling - omelettes being a French dish par excellence -  expert but unpretentious. The expertise could be the problem, but not necessarily. Elizabeth David once wrote a famous essay in which she commemorated a hotel on the Ile-St-Michel, just off the coast of Normandy, which reputedly made the best omelettes in the world.  The chef, Annette Poulard, worked unbelievable wonders, requiring her own special breed of hens, the best possible  French butter, a splash of top-quality cream, considerable sleight of hand, a perfect frying pan that was never to be washed, and even, some said claimed, a dash of foi e gras.

In fact her omelettes were not rich at all. In the end, after retirement, she disclosed that all she did was break some good eggs into a bowl, beat them well, put a good piece of butter in the pan, throw the eggs into it, and shake it constantly. “I am happy,” she added, “if this recipe pleases you.”

So there was no mystique, no secret ingredient,  nothing more than Frenchness and deftness. As a clumsy cook, who happens to love good omelettes, I know I could never compete. But is there not someone in Edinburgh who could show how,  serving  simple plain omelettes, herb omelettes, cheese omelettes, mushroom omelettes.The scope -  and, on my part,  the suggestion - is there. In Comiston Road, young Marie of the Marie Delices cafe restaurant, has scored a hit with her brilliant buckwheat crepes. Who is going to do likewise by opening  An Omelette and a Glass of Wine? The name is Elizabeth David’s of course.  But the same name, or something of the sort, could also be yours.
9 September 3014

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