Cafe Andaluz Old Town — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

I will preface this review with a quick background: we are tourists to Edinburgh, but have eaten in many Spanish restaurants around the world. We knew this is a local chain restaurant, and we had metered expectations based on this. We were just hoping for a decent meal, which unfortunately we did not receive.

We had an 8.15pm reservation on a busy Friday evening. We arrived a bit early (around 7.50pm) and were asked to wait until closer to the reservation to check-in, which was understandable. The weather wasn’t the best and they had nowhere for us to wait inside, so we stood in the rain outside the door for about 15 minutes before checking back in with the hostess. She remembered us and we were seated right away after that, so the experience started out well enough.

We were seated and brought water immediately, which was appreciated, but then we saw table after table come in after us without anyone coming by to take our order. Eventually I caught the attention of a worker and we were able to place our order, about 20 minutes after being seated.

We ordered a pitcher of sangria, the ibérico plate and the paella de mariscos. We knew the paella would take some time to come out (given how the experience was going, we were prepared to wait 30-40 minutes).

The sangria and ibérico plate were brought to the table only 5 minutes or so after ordering, so we thought things were looking up. The sangria was decent and the ibérico plate was okay.

The paella came out right around 20-30 minutes after ordering, which was as expected. But when providing the paella, the worker seemed annoyed that we needed her to take away the empty plate from the ibérico plate. This was the start of the major issues with the evening, unfortunately.

The paella was inedible. It was not seasoned at all, and the seafood tasted dangerously off. We decided to leave the paella uneaten and drink the rest of our sangria. We tried several times to ask to pay, but the staff were frantically moving around the restaurant. It took another 20-30 minutes to get the attention of someone to charge our card.

We didn’t bother complaining to the staff at all, it wasn’t one staff member’s error that caused this snowball effect, it was just general mismanagement of the entire restaurant and kitchen. I would never...

The food is decent but you need to go in knowing this is food for the British palate, made by a chain. It’s good in that there’s a lot of variety and dishes like the black pudding with apple taste great. But although delicious, if you’re looking for authentic tapas, this is not it. For one thing all the dishes come out together and there have definitely been shortcuts taken in the prep. That’s fair though, it is a very large restaurant.

The service needs improvement. The guy looking after our table was lovely and efficient but he must’ve left, then we got forgotten about. Trying to order coffees after dessert, all the staff were rushing about cleaning or carrying and avoiding eye contact. A waitress stood at the next table talking to some American patrons for twenty minutes. I went up to the bar to try to order but was told it was table service, he pointed at that waitress and said she would take our orders. After she eventually finished talking she started rushing about and I waved at her, she didn’t seem that happy but took our order and then totally forgot about it. Another twenty minutes went by and I noticed the coffees sitting on a tray at the bar, all the staff rushing past them (including her). They sat there for a while before someone noticed and brought them over, they were warm enough though.

Gave up waiting on anyone coming back so went up to the front desk to pay. I’d have taken the 10% service charge off but my boyfriend felt too...

The food was edible enough for me to stuff it down, though most dishes were very salty. Service was horrible. There are TRAPS inside the menu to beware of. There is a lunch deal marked “$28 per person”, but it doesn’t say that it’s for TWO PEOPLE. They don’t let you order for only one person or three or more. So logically, they should price it at its ACTUAL price. The way they implemented this was clearly set to scam customers. So the price totals out to be $58 dollars. The wine menu is ALSO a scam. They only tell u the price for a single cup of whiskey, but when the waiters come they ask you whether you want “single or double”. However, because the wine menu doesn’t give an option to choose double, many people would naturally assume that the waiter meant whether you wanted regular or more ICE, like when you’re ordering COCKTAILS. However, when you ask for the bill they charge you the equivalent price of 2 whiskies. Overall, the menu is EXTREMELY MISLEADING. However, if you make sure to ask the waiters about anything you’re even SLIGHTLY confused about, you’ll get by without getting scammed. The worst thing is that the waiters don’t INFORM YOU OF ANY OF THIS. I’ve never written a review this bad and long about a restaurant before, so I mean it when I say that this is a big thing you need to...