AN American chef is relocating his popular fine-dining restaurant from San Francisco to Scotland.
Rodney Wages will bring his Michelin-starred restaurant Avery, to Edinburgh in early 2024, with a pop-up opening in December.
Wages fell in love with the city during a holiday with his family last year and spent three months looking for a new location for Avery.
The restaurant is due to open in the Stockbridge area of the capital, as Wages wants to be part of the “up and coming food scene”. Whilst the restaurant was based in San Fransisco, it served an Asian and European-inspired menu of dishes such as foie gras tortellini, grilled black cod curry and black truffle tuna.
The menu for Avery Edinburgh is expected to feature similar dishes but with Scottish ingredients such as scallops and wild game.
Wages added that he eventually hopes to own his own farm in Scotland, so that he can grow ingredients for the restaurant.
He said: “I think the food scene in Edinburgh is up and coming.
“There’s some really talented chefs putting Edinburgh on the map for food, and I think in the next couple years there’s definitely going to be more Michelin stars and more talented chefs opening restaurants in the city.”
Edinburgh has four of the 12 Scottish restaurants given Michelin stars in this year’s Great Britain & Ireland guide.
Wages won his first Michelin star for Avery – named after the artist Milton Avery – in 2021.
A statement on the San Francisco restaurant’s Instagram page said that Wages would close the doors on November 4 “for new adventures and new challenges”.
It added: “While we will miss the restaurant in San Francisco and are proud of what we have accomplished here, we are excited for the next evolution of Avery opening this winter in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.”
