Norn closes indefinitely

Scott Smith announced last week he had left Norn after two years as chef patron and is opening a new restaurant Fhior on Broughton Street in Edinburgh.

• Find out more about Scott Smith 
• Norn Chef – Scott Smith talks about restaurant style, his inspiration and the importance of local, traceable produce

It has now been announced that Norn will close indefinitely and in a statement Scott, who has previously worked for Geoff Smeddle at The Peat Inn, and his wife Laura said: "We have found out that our ex-business partner has chosen to close Norn indefinitely, we are gutted! We handed him a strong, ready-made restaurant, with a reputation and a diary full of bookings. This is after he indicated he was looking forward to running the day to day."

They added:  "We are gutted for everyone who had a booking for this week and, as we understand, received no notification that their reservation would not be honoured, we find this unacceptable. We hope to get this message out to as many people as possible, so they can make alternative arrangements for the bookings they had with Norn." 

Last week they spoke about plans for the new venture which they say will open in two to three weeks.

They said: "We write to tell you that, with great regret, we have had to walk away from Norn. This was a terribly difficult and heart-breaking decision to make after all the work we put into creating what we achieved – which we are incredibly proud of.

However, we’re hugely fortunate and excited to announce that we are developing an amazing new restaurant on Broughton Street, of which we will have full control of.

The new restaurant will be named ‘Fhior’ (meaning true/honest) and will have great sourcing of produce at the heart of everything it does and a very excited hybrid of uses for the concept."

Scott grew up with a passion for food and like most chefs started his career working as a pot wash for a local restaurant. It wasn’t long before he nabbed his first commis job at a small Sicilian restaurant working his way up to become sous chef. He later moved to the one Michelin-starred, The Peat Inn working under Geoffrey Smeddle before opening a new restaurant with award winning chef, Steve Collinson and then managing seven restaurants and bars working as a Food Development Manager. It was after leaving his development job that Scott opened Norn.