Elliott’s of Edinburgh

Happy Food.

The Elliott’s Kitchen at 27 Sciennes Road, Edinburgh is at home among other houses in a quiet residential quarter beside the leafy Meadows parkland. It’s a setting made for Jess’s business, with its apple green tongue-and-groove panelling, ceramic pots and fresh foliage tumbling from shelves set with ferments and pickles. Cookbooks are piled up beside bottles of fermented ginger soda, and the counter is strewn with flaky pastry galettes and sponge cakes with homemade jam ready for dolloping with custard. No, Elliott’s wouldn’t be at home on a busy high street of uniform chains. It’s a celebration of home cooking that is deliciously undone, appetising in its informality. 

This shouldn’t be a surprise. London-born Jess opened Elliott’s in summer 2018 after a career spanning product and brand development for Jamie Oliver, as well as food writing, styling and recipe testing for the likes of Frankie Unsworth, Yasmin Kahn and Dan Toombs. With the business (originally a café, but since the pandemic a takeaway kitchen), she wanted to “make feeding people and having a good chat” her main job – alongside writing her cookbooks, that is. After the best-selling ‘Salad Feasts’ and ‘Tin Can Magic’, ‘Lazy Baking’ was published last September. 

Recipes from the books feature on the menu at Elliott’s, which opens at 9am to serve breakfast dishes such as porridge rolls filled with eggs, and crushed potatoes roasted with coriander seeds. “There’s always a bowl of seasonal compote on the counter to dollop over yoghurt and hazelnut granola, blackberries roasted with bay, or apples stewed with cardamom and lemon,” says Jess, who describes making a good coffee and a slice of toast topped with homemade jam as “very special”. Lunch starts at 12 and includes a pot of soup with bread and butter, then maybe a pumpkin salad with pearl barley, sage and toasted hazelnuts in autumn, or a three-cheese pasta with crispy chestnut pangritata in winter. 

For Jess, it’s important that food looks loose and natural, as if the ingredients have just fallen onto the plate. “I would never perfectly cube a tomato – I always train new team members to ‘chop like you’re drunk!’,” she says. It’s a relaxed approach to cooking influenced by her childhood memories of eating with family and living in Bangkok, Sydney and London. She wants Elliott’s to feel like an extension of her own home, and prides herself on remembering customers’ names, and those of their children and dogs. “Our local community is our ‘bread and butter’,” she says. “We see the same people every week, which I’m really proud of. But people also make the trip across the Meadows as part of their visit to Edinburgh.” 

As well as serving home-baked fare, Elliott’s stocks store cupboard essentials – such as marmalades by Jess’s mum that literally flew off the shelves at Christmas – as well as a “small but considered” retail range from artists, makers and producers. It’s curated by artist Phillippa Henley, Jess’s creative partner, and “every detail is nurtured to be as homely as possible”. Customers will soon have the chance to learn how to recreate the ravishingly undone Elliott’s home style when Jess opens the Elliott’s Workshop later this year. Just up the road from the Elliott’s Kitchen, the space, at number 21, will host public talks, events, pop-ups and supper clubs. A sort of “living room” to the Elliott’s Kitchen, the workshop will “bring our values of simple, honest cooking even further to life,” says Jess. Turn the page to try out a recipe from Jessica’s latest cookbook, Lazy Baking.

recipe from lazy baking . enjoy .

Fennel Seed & Lemon Pastries

Makes 12 small pastries 
Takes 25 minutes, plus 35–40 minutes baking time 

1 sheet ready-rolled all-butter puff pastry (about 35 x 23 cm/14 x 9 in) 
1 ½ tablespoons icing (confectioner’s) sugar 

Fennel seed and lemon frangipane 
50g (2 oz/ ½ cup) ground almonds 
30g (1 oz) butter, soft/at room temperature 
70g (2½ oz/scant 1/3 cup) caster (superfine) sugar 
1 tablespoon honey 
1 egg yolk 
Pinch of sea salt flakes 
2 tablespoons milk (ideally whole/full fat), plus 1 tablespoon for brushing 
1 ½ tablespoons fennel seeds, plus 1 tablespoon for sprinkling 
Grated zest of 2 lemons, plus 1 lemon for zesting after baking 

1. First, preheat the oven to 180°C fan (400°F/gas 6) and line two large baking trays (pans) with baking paper. 

2. Next, make the frangipane by putting all the frangipane ingredients (except for the zest of 1 lemon) in a food processor and blitzing until smooth. (Or mix in a large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon using lots of elbow grease.) 

3. Unroll the sheet of pastry on a clean work surface. Using a sharp knife, cut it into 12 small rectangles, measuring about 8 x 5 cm (3 x 2 in). 

4. Spread a heaped teaspoon of frangipane in the centre of each pastry rectangle. Roll each pastry rectangle lengthways. Twist the rolled pastries slightly, as you would a cheese straw. Bring the two ends together to make a horseshoe shape and pinch them together. Transfer to the lined baking trays. 

5. Using a pastry brush, dab the horseshoes with the extra tablespoon of milk. Sprinkle over the extra tablespoon of fennel seeds and bake for 35–40 minutes or until golden. 

6. Using a sieve (strainer), dust the pastries with icing (confectionerʼs) sugar while still warm from the oven. Using a Microplane or fine side of a box grater, zest the remaining lemon over the pastries. Leave to cool. 

7. The pastries will keep well for up to two days in an airtight container.

Recipe from Lazy Baking by Jessica Elliott Dennison (Hardie Grant, £16.99) 
Photography by ©Matt Russell 
To keep up to date with Elliott’s: elliottsedinburgh.com Instagram: @elliottsedinburgh