Friday 26 November 2010

Seasonal splendour in Edinburgh

As I wrote from Edinburgh last year, Scotland's capital boasts over 4,500 listed buildings. Few are more sumptuous than The Dome, the former head office of the Commercial Bank of Scotland, and now a splendid restaurant.

Above: the gallery on the first floor overlooking the lobby. The building, with its neo-classical portico fronting on George St, dates back to 1844. "The figures on the portico represent Caledonia, flanked by Prudence, Agriculture, Commerce, Enterprise, Mechanical Science and Learning", it says on a handy sheet about the Dome's history.

A big thank-you to Peter and Krystyna for inviting me to lunch at the Dome, where we spoke enthusiastically about Poland's economic prospects for the coming 30 years - a period in which Peter, a financier, expects the country to catch up and indeed overtake western European economies. As I was in Scotland, I lunched on haggis, that 'wee, sleek, cowering, timorous beastie', shot earlier that week on a haggis hunt in the McSporran mountains.

Left: Christmas tree in the restaurant slowly changes colour. The Dome decked out in its Yuletide finery is a treat to the eye, very tastefully done. Of the three waiters serving us at our table, three were from Poland. Every table was occupied, the place bursting at the seams. Certainly this part of Edinburgh, the recession's well and truly over!

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