A Michelin-starred Edinburgh favourite adds rooms to its restaurant

In recent years, Edinburgh has become one of the most exciting food capitals in Western Europe, and one of the key players in this salivatory surge is chef-restaurateur Stuart Ralston. Glenrothes-born Ralston is a career chef who cut his teeth in New York before returning to Edinburgh to open Aizle in 2014. Ralston is hungry and restless; 12 years later, he has four restaurants in Edinburgh: Noto, Tipo, Vinette and Lyla. The last is the jewel in his crown. It occupies a regal spot in a Georgian townhouse on Royal Terrace, looking north over the city towards the Firth of Forth, and it holds one of the capital’s seven Michelin stars.

Lyla makes a night of it in Edinburgh

Since April 2026, Lyla has added four bedrooms upstairs to its offer. Each is named after an edible coastal plant: Aster, Linen, Samphire and Purslane. The rooms have been designed by Glasgow-based studio Scarinish, which also designed the restaurant on the ground floor in 2023. Across the restaurant and rooms, the designers have deployed a clever amount of warmth and character to soften the lofty grandeur of those Georgian proportions. In the bedrooms, dark wood joinery is balanced with bold and graphic textiles by Orcadian designer Hilary Grant. Furniture and lighting have brass details that glint among the painterly wall colours. The mood is hallowed, without being stuffy or pretentious. That legendary Edinburgh light completes the scene. Beds are huge and comfortable, which is what really matters after the epic tasting menu that takes place downstairs.

The food is still the star of the show at Lyla. It is a charismatic seafood-based tasting menu of great skill and imagination, heart and soul. We’ll confess to being a little tired of the tasting-menu format, but in Ralston’s hands it’s a deft and personal adventure. This is fare with flair; each dish is deeply intriguing and utterly delicious, a precarious balance that escapes too many chefs flirting with the Michelin crowd. Over three canapés, ten courses and four petit fours, we were introduced to squid-as-ramen; sorrel sorbet; laminated brioche with wild garlic butter; a crunchy langoustine with burnt apple; lobster, kingfish, halibut, scallop, trout and crab in forms each more beguiling than the last. It’s a fishy fandango, in the very best sense.

The experience of Lyla’s tasting menu has that magic ingredient all too often overlooked in fine dining: joy. And it feels all the more enjoyable, frankly, for our being able to roll upstairs to an epic bed, without even needing to consider engaging with the outside world. Satiated, swaddled, and rendered comatose, we then awoke from a magnificent slumber and had breakfast brought to our room first thing. A beautiful breakfast picnic affair, it consisted of fresh pastries, a banana-chocolate miso muffin, sea trout gravlax, cheese, berries, juices and coffee. Before catatonia took hold, we departed back to real life, grateful for 12 hours of wonderment, and equally grateful that those muffins aren’t within easy reach on a daily basis.

We took the opportunity to quiz Stuart Ralston about Lyla’s expansion from restaurant to rooms and the Edinburgh dining scene beyond.

Wallpaper*: Your restaurants each have a clear personality. What is Lyla's?

Stuart Ralston: Lyla’s identity is very much centred around Scottish seafood. Scotland has some of the finest seafood in the world, and I wanted to create a restaurant that put that at the forefront, treating it with the same level of care and attention that you might traditionally associate with meat-led fine dining. It’s a Michelin-starred restaurant, but the ambition isn’t simply about refinement. It’s about showcasing the quality of our waters, our producers and our coastline through a contemporary tasting menu. The experience is intimate, focused and ingredient-led, with seafood at the heart of everything we do.

W*: How does the ethos of your food at Lyla extend into the hospitality experience?

SR: The food and hospitality are completely connected. We put a lot of emphasis on making the experience feel personal and engaging rather than formal. We have a world-class front-of-house team that leads the service and creates the atmosphere in the room, but it’s also important to me that the chefs are involved directly with guests. Many of the dishes are served by the chefs themselves, who spend time explaining the ingredients, producers and thinking behind each course. I think there’s something special about hearing directly from the person who prepared the dish. It creates a stronger connection between the kitchen and the guest and gives people a better understanding of the work and care that goes into the food.

W*: Do the Georgian bones of the building inspire a certain mood that you play with in the Lyla experience?

SR: Absolutely. The building already had a sense of elegance and permanence before we ever touched it. What appealed to me was that we didn’t need to fight against that. Instead, we could work with it. There’s a restraint to Georgian architecture that I really admire. The proportions are beautiful, but they’re not trying to shout about it. That’s something we’ve tried to carry through the restaurant. The space feels considered and understated rather than theatrical.

W*: How has Edinburgh’s food scene evolved since you first opened Aizle?

SR: When we opened Aizle, there were already some excellent restaurants in Edinburgh, but the scene feels much broader and more confident today and has grown a lot. What’s been particularly exciting is seeing a generation of chefs and operators building businesses with a really clear point of view. There’s a willingness now to create something distinctive rather than follow a particular formula. People are building businesses that reflect their own personality, values and style of cooking, and diners have responded positively to that.

Lyla Restaurant & Rooms is located at 3 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh EH7 5AB. Dinner starts from £185 per head. Overnight stays for two including dinner are £715, while room-only rates begin at £345, both including breakfast.