Cafe Grande — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

We had our first visit to the Grand Cafe for Fizz and Flick where we had brunch followed by a film - on the most part, we loved our visit, however there were a few parts of the service that weren't great.

We were asked if we would like our fizz upon entry and as my wife is pregnant, we asked if there was any non-alcoholic fizz as an alternative. The waitress said no, without giving any alternatives. We had to prompt if she could have a soft drink instead - which was fine. The majority of places we go, especially with a great reputation like the Grand Cafe, normally have non-alcoholic alternatives and staff don't require a prompt to offer a soft drink. The menu had around 6 options, 3 of which had hollandaise sauce and another with pesto. We asked if anything was unsuitable for pregnancy dietary requirements. The waitress went to ask the kitchen and came back to advise that the hollandaise sauce and pesto were unsuitable. There the options were quite limited. Instead of suggesting that the dishes were served without the sauce or pesto (they were just added on top of each meal) they were just ruled out completely. Again, it was a bit disappointing that there wasn't an alternative offered and instead the menu limited to two items. The food that we did have was delicious, it was just a shame there wasn't more variety for my wife.

The overall experience was amazing and we'll definitely be back, maybe just without the...

Had a superb dinner here. We hadn't booked so we were pleased to be able get a table. The staff were really welcoming, very chatty and helpful and the food was superb.

We had a bottle of the house wine (a blended white that didn't say much useful on the label) which was reasonably priced and very easy drinking (I'd guess at a viognier but who know).

To start we had the beef cheeks (falling apart, plenty of gravy on the side) and the haggis spring rolls (which also went well with the gravy).

For mains we had the chicken ballotin - very Mediterranean, delicious spring onion pave potatoes - and the beef bourgignon which was rich and robust with very tender beef and delicious garlic mashed potatoes.

I had the sticky toffee pudding for dessert and it was the best I've ever had - one of my favourite desserts and they absolutely nailed it.

The tables are well spaced and the background music is low enough so that is easy to have a conversation at normal volume level.

All round a fabulous, low key place that I would recommend for a relaxed and...

The horrible experience we had last week has never happened to us before and hopefully never again. We had a theatre performance to attend at 7pm which was a 5 minutes walk from restaurant. We arrived at 5.50pm and ordered. We were given a jug of not very cold water. The wait began. At 6.25 I asked when our meals would arrive? Two minutes was the reply. They came at 6.35ish. My pan fried fish was tough and horrible. Daughter's burger warm. Wife's battered fish was gorgeous. We had to leave half our meal in order to get to the theatre before the performance began. The staff could not have been more polite or apologetic (they were training a new chef). We were not charged but sorry this does not make up for such poor service. The restaurant was clean, cosy and had a nice atmosphere but we will not be back. I hope I never have to write a review like this again or feel as awkward when having to complain when all around us seemed to be getting food with excellent service and we sat watching...