Iain Whiteley and Ally Eccles have crafted a fresh take on dining, blending elevated classics with the charm of local delights.
Imagine a cozy, welcoming atmosphere paired with playful, intriguing creations- a unique, five course tasting menu designed to celebrate the seasons. Best of all, it’s nestled in the heart of Stirling.
An Dárna was brought to life by long term friends Ian and Ally, who first crossed paths 16 years ago while working in hospitality. With years of industry experience under their belts, fate stepped in when a ‘To Let’ sign appeared across from Iain’s cocktail bar Meraki. Seizing the opportunity, the duo turned their vision into reality and introduced An Dárna.
With an ever-changing menu crafted by Head Chef Ally and his skilled team, paired with their commitment to local ingredients and the restaurants welcoming ambience, every visit promises a truly memorable dining experience.
Let’s dive into the world of An Dárna in this Q&A with Iain Whitley.
Describe An Dárna in one word.
Intriguing. We try to reiterate that we are not ‘fine dining’ – we are playful food. It’s more about being interesting and different, having a bit of fun with the food but in a relaxed manner.
How did An Dárna come to be?
I had Meraki cocktail bar across the road already. Ally and I had worked together for 15/16 years, across all different venues and had always spoken about doing something ourselves. One night, the ‘To let’ sign went up outside this building and I immediately phoned him and said “There’s the perfect venue- let’s go”.
We’ve always done this kind of thing but we always wanted to do it for ourselves and luckily enough we were able to.
Why food and hospitality? You both have previously worked together in the industry. What sparked your passion for this industry, and what keeps it alive today?
It felt natural for me to fall into. I’d worked as a waiter when I was a kid in Dunblane Golf Club, I’d always been involved in the industry throughout University. When I graduated from University, it wasn’t a promising time for my degree. So, I’d went into hospitality and loved it.
What do you want your restaurant to be known for in the community?
Somewhere that does good food but in a really relaxed and comfortable manner. While the food is phenomenal, and Ally has some crazy wild wonderful ideas, we don’t want people to feel like it’s a pretentious or stuck up place. We want it to be enjoyable, relaxed and fun, rather than formal.
We both grew up in the area, so we knew what it needed.
What inspired the idea of an ever changing menu?
Originally, we were going to change one dish a week. We went through lots of different options of how we were going to do it. Whether it would be multiple choices throughout each course, whether we would change one item a week, but in the end, we thought lets make it a bigger deal and have a rotation – we landed on changing the full menu on a 5 week block.
That way, we can encourage people to come back and enjoy different food each time and of course, it helps for seasonality. All the food we produce is based around local produce and seasonality. In January, we are doing a ‘Best of 2024’ menu, but of course, some of the produce we got in summer, we can’t get in winter so easily (locally, so we have to adapt the dishes to accommodate this. So with that, in mind changing the menu meant we could change with the seasons.
We did always contend with he idea of changing with each season – but then we thought let’s completely screw ourselves over and change every 5 weeks!
How do you come up with new ideas for the menu?
When we first opened, it was very much down to Ally and that was fine – but obviously it would eventually get hard for one person by himself. We now have three chefs in the kitchen and they have an ideas board on the wall which they add to throughout the 5 weeks of rotation.
They talk about it throughout the day, there is always lots of chat, discussion, ideas. Lots of things get thrown about, lots of produce gets sent to us by mistake, these things spark ideas of how we can use it. Then we speak to suppliers and find out what they would have available at that time of year, so we can then take their produce and think ‘what can we do with that?’
They are constantly coming up with crazy ideas. Some of them are phenomenal, some of them are very questionable but turn out to be fantastic!
What do you think is the most important factor in creating a memorable dining experience?
A happy balance between the quality of the produce we serve and the service. It’s a whole round experience. If we were doing what we do, but in an uninviting environment, it might not be that fantastic. Likewise you can have the best service and lack the quality. So it’s really that happy balance between the two.
We have an open kitchen here, the chefs and the front of house team are always interacting with each other, to the point that our chefs are now starting to come out and speak to our customers on our new ‘Chef’s Table’.
This is a new table at the front of the restaurant that faces the kitchen. It can take up to 4 people and we use it once a night. It’s a 7 course meal that the chefs pick for you. It becomes a dining experience where the chefs are talking to you about what they did with the food, why they did it, it’s becoming a lot more interactive. The experience of sitting there is great, its perfect and it’s a bit of fun.
Do you have a favourite dish or ingredient that you love to showcase in your menus?
I don’t – I just think everything the guys put out is phenomenal. It’s nice to be able to serve food that I’m proud of and have confidence in. It feels good to be able to put the food down, see the look on people’s faces and know we have done a good job.
An Dárna is committed to sustainability, reducing waste and utilising local, season ingredients. Why is this important to you?
I think it should be important to everyone. I don’t understand why it’s not, to be honest. Sure, we can get stuff from all over the place, and some of the suppliers we use can get stuff from much further a field and (don’t get me wrong, some of the stuff we have on the menu does come from further a field where need be – it does have to at some points). But as much as possible, we want to highlight local and sustainable options to everyone. For the sake of the future but also because it’s like helping your neighbours.
Going out and speaking to local suppliers is great because you get to talk one to one to the person, it’s not an online portal, you can get to know them and really feel that there is a person behind it.
You can also know that they have probably gone through the exact same things setting up a business, so it’s nice to feed off each other that way. I guess it does stem from the fact that we both live here, we feel part of the community.
We really try to reduce our food waste too. For example, one of the dishes we used last year surrounded corn. We used the whole corn, we used the stalk to make tortillas, we made a corn salad. It’s about being able to identity how we can use what might have been waste and how we can turn it into something else.
What’s next for An Dárna?
We have hampers coming! The plan is to have options from our menu but in bottle format or jar format, for example on our current menu we have carrot chutney, bacon jam, burnt pineapple ketchup which are all fantastic. We want to be able offer these! People enjoy them so much when they are here, we want to let them enjoy them when they’re at home!
When did you join the chamber?
We joined almost two years ago – about 5 months after we first opened. I was formally part of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce when I worked through the in hotels. I saw the benefits not just the hotels I was working for but for the other people in the community, I thought it would work for us moving through here.
It was a good way to get a foot in to start networking with other likeminded people.
In what ways have you utilised your membership at the Chamber?
We hosted a coffee morning in spring this year. It was great – really well attended (actually far busier than we expected it to be). There was myself and Ally here, giving a little introduction to what we did here. It was nice to meet other people. We’ve seen lots of them here for dinner since then, which we are so grateful for.
An Dárna is more than just a restaurant – it’s a celebration of food, friendship and community and an experience you don’t want to miss out on.