In conversation with renowned chef and broadcaster McLeod, the new chef and owner of the Best of Edinburgh award-winning restaurant argues that professional chefs should bring local produce and tradition to their offerings.

Roberta Hall McCarron is one of Scotland's leading chefs. The winner of the Edinburgh Chef Revelation Award, she opened The Little Chartroom in 2018, which has now been named the best restaurant in the Scottish capital. Committed to cooking from Scotland's larder and countryside, McCarron is a champion of game cuisine "for the quality of this wild meat, for its status as an emblematic product of Scottish culinary culture and, above all, for the contribution this sector makes to the economy of rural areas". Alongside fellow Scottish-Malaysian chef and broadcaster Julie Swee-Lin McLeod, she gave a talk entitled 'Hunting, gastronomy and the demographic challenge'.

'Hunting is about putting Scotland on the plate and giving rural areas an economic boost,' said Hall, who shares Julie McLeod's concern to educate and inform the public. We in the culinary profession have a huge social relevance, and that comes with a responsibility," says McLeod, who teaches cooking to children in Glasgow schools in addition to her work as a chef, restaurateur and broadcaster. Hall contributes to The Little Chartroom, which is becoming increasingly popular in Scotland. Her cuisine is based on traditional Scottish larder and gastronomy, updated with contemporary cooking criteria. I love it when people from the US come into my restaurants and are encouraged to try haggis or partridge. Some of them are a little apprehensive at first, but the small portions on the menu encourage them and they end up appreciating it,' she says.

During the hunting season in Scotland, which runs from August to March, Roberta Hall puts a variety of species on the menu. We have pigeons, partridges and a huge variety of birds; we have hares, we have big game. Scotland has a great tradition of hunting, but historically it was an entertainment reserved for the social elite, and now it is a sporting activity that involves a lot of people, creates a lot of jobs and generates a lot of wealth. It's a thriving industry," she said. McLeod highlighted the significant demographic exodus from Scotland in recent decades. People are concentrating in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Cooking with local produce can be a way of generating an economy in rural areas,' she said.

Both chefs are aware that Scotland has a privileged larder of excellent sea and river fish, quality seafood, beef and sheep, vegetables and wild produce. That is why he believes it is important to cook the countryside to make consumers aware of it. I think there are more and more chefs who are committed to our heritage and our countryside, and perhaps the biggest challenge is to make the younger public aware of the importance of eating local, including something like game, which many feel disconnected from or reject outright," Hall said. The pantry, even traditional cuisine, can be presented in a modern and original way. In your case, you're offering a cuisine that fuses Scottish and Malaysian cooking and the Pantry, and it's a very successful formula,' he told McLeod.

Roberta Hall, from her restaurant's kitchen, has developed a recipe for partridge with a forest berry sauce and vegetable touches. We don't treat game the way we used to. Now we cut it up and cook each part in the most appropriate way. Treated in this way, it is a meat that offers many possibilities. I feel fortunate to be able to cook it, and the proof that it is a wealth-generating product is in the price. We pay £25 for a bird. It is a high price, but it shows the quality of the meat and the way it is produced,' she concluded.