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The charming little Le Sept can be found immediately off the Old Town High Street by the Tron Kirk and is one of those Edinburgh institutions you should not miss visiting. The restaurant is known to serve some of the best French country dishes and chances are that going there will make you fall in love with France and its cooking.

The special seafood menu with choices such as whole king prawns with garlic butter offer a whole new dimension to that simple dish. Steaks can be cooked to order with one of a variety of interesting accompaniments, not least the cracked black pepper and brandy gravy or you may prefer the roast haunch of venison, marinated in red wine and served with dauphinoise potatoes.

Their crepes are legendary and include imaginative fillings, come with their own béchamel sauce and are topped with Jarlsberg cheese. Le Sept's own special house wine offers good value both by the glass and bottle. The wine list itself is full of mainly French wines, carefully chosen and well-priced.

Loon Fung is well up the scale when it comes to sorting out the Chinese restaurants in Edinburgh. As Cantonese come in the city few are in the same bracket as Loon Fung. It is very much a haunt of politicians and, even more significantly, the Chinese themselves, always a source of confidence to those treading warily outside their own national cuisine.

The spare ribs are spoken of in hushed tones, judged by some to be the best obtainable in the country. Perhaps too many people tend to judge a Chinese by its dim sum and there is no doubt they have become widely popular. Here again Loon Fung scores highly.

Merchants has a long-standing reputation for various forms of catering in Scotland; its handsome and well-respected restaurant at the very heart of Edinburgh Old Town is an important part of the empire. Emphasis is on Scottish ingredients and dishes, but by no means excluding a wider spread on the daily changing menu. An attractively arranged wheel of Angus beef (and when we were there the beef gave every evidence of having been treated properly prior to cooking) comes well-dressed with an Arran mustard coat, or a filo pastry generously filled with guinea fowl and black grapes, and some very good soups all appear regularly amongst the starters. Main courses are comfortable rather than exciting and may include a fillet of Angus beef on a bed of haggis and glazed with a whisky sauce, crown of quail filled with an orange stuffing, served with a smoked bacon and mushroom sauce, or a pan-fried fillet of trout with an anchovy and Provencale sauce. Service can be a touch patchy but when it's on form it's very good, and the overall quality of the operation is never in doubt.

A high spot in the Scottish culinary galaxy is surely La Potinière. With a list of Awards stretching from Gullane to Edinburgh, figuratively speaking, it provides some of the most superlative eating to be had in the East Lothian area and has been owned by Keith Marley and Mary Runciman since 2004. Founder members of the Scotch Beef Club, their membership of this blue chip passport to some of the best meat in the world speaks for itself.

Everything is prepared in-house and the season's and finest local ingredients make the going throughout the menus. Lunch is served from 12.30 and could include leek and lovage soup with a poached quail's egg, followed by roast Gressingham duck Supreme, and a warm, light chocolate pudding with raspberry compote and vanilla ice cream.

Dinner is taken at a leisurely pace, starting perhaps with warm goat's cheese tart, followed by a medley of smoked salmon. A loin of Scottish roe deer with vegetables and damson gin sauce demands the sort of dessert posed by rhubarb, vanilla yoghurt cream and elderflower sorbet. Whatever the time of day a plate of Scottish cheese should always command attention, with the possibility of a well kept Dunsyre or Lanark Blue making an appearance.

A wine list of great integrity offers a range that will match itself with the style of La Potinière's dishes, and there are sensible selections made for those looking for wine by the glass or half bottle, at prices that most certainly do not reduce the sheer pleasure of a meal in this up and coming restaurant.

One to watch.