The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh

The Voodoo Rooms isn’t a restaurant. It’s a cocktail bar, music venue, club and restaurant. To call its interior “bold” would not suffice. On entering the ‘Rooms (which comprises five rooms), the black and gold décor slaps you like a weighty studded leather paddle. Not necessarily an unpleasant experience. You could almost be in a themed hotel room in Las Vegas but there is enough in the way of original wood panelling and large curved windows to make it work, if not for everyone.

I was looking forward to trying the new menu (food provided by Devil’s Kitchen), having enjoyed their confit belly of pork over the summer. The cocktail bar nature of the place was evidenced by the cucumber and mint in the jug of tap water which was brought automatically with our house red (tempranillo, £13, pretty good). This may work well in Pimm's but tap water definitely prefers a slice of lemon. Starters of pumpkin gnocchi and ‘lady of the night’ spaghetti (aka puttanesca) both disappointed – the large gnocchi weren’t bad but seemed to be smothered in Campbell’s Condensed tomato soup, pumpkin undetectable. The puttanesca was a bit over anchovied and couldn’t boast the heat or depth required for balance.

Any hopes of a plump, pink, juicy rack of lamb you may be given from the menu’s “lamb rib roast” will quickly be brought back to credit-crunch reality by salty thick-end ribs, a little fatty meat still attached. Having said this they were moreish, and enjoyed the company of their too short-lived friend, mint, yoghurt and cucumber dip.

The Voodoo Rooms is good fun, go for the interesting cocktail list (I’ll be back for their Bloody Mary world tour) and very good desserts (especially the hearty apple and rhubarb crumble with crème fraiche), if not for a refined dining experience.