Cafe St Honorė — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

The Restaurant itself is beautiful: great location, tucked away on Thistle Street with intimate interiors that are unabashedly styled after a French Brasserie. Brilliant!

Service:

Before we came to the restaurant we called up to ask if we could move our booking from 7:45 to 6:30. The restaurant said they could and we rearranged our plans accordingly. They then called a couple of hours later and said they could only give us the original time. Normally this would be fine, but we ended up having to choose between going here/a bar down the road we had changed our booking for, so it wasn’t great on the service front, especially given that they charge for no-shows.

Once in the restaurant the staff were lovely and friendly, but at points service was slow with some minor things missed. For example, we asked for more bread which never arrived and they didn’t have any of the wine we ordered.

Food:

Two of us shared a bottle of wine, and had a starter, main and shared desert.

The wine menu is great! Lots of choice and great variety, albeit reasonably expensive for what’s on offer (the lowest priced bottles of red start at around £40).

The starters were nice: we had Smoked Mackerel and Ham Hock Terrine. The Mackerel was well smoked and came with a salad to garnish it. The Ham Hock was yum, with crusty bread to seal the deal. A solid start in classic brasserie style.

For our mains we had the Duck Breast and the Lambs Leg. The duck was perfectly cooked and simply delicious. The Lambs Leg, however, was lacklustre: it sat in lentils which were a bit clumpy and the Lamb seemed slightly overcooked without any great depth of flavour. Mixed reviews on the mains.

For desert we shared the cheese board. There were three cheeses and some oat cakes. The goats cheese was lovely, the hard cheese was relatively basic and the soft cheese was not good. It seemed to had hardened and had a plasticky texture/taste to it. A bit disappointing for an Artisan Cheese Board, especially for a French restaurant!

The Price: Total: £170 Wine: £42 Starters: £29 Mains: £69 Desert: £15 Service: £15.50

Altogether, we had a positive experience. The restaurants vibe is amazing, but there is room for improvement in the service and in the food. In the way of price, we thought it was a bit over-priced given a couple of the issues noted above. I probably wouldn’t go again, but am happy to have...

The overall environment is excellent, with the warm glow of candles creating a romantic and intimate atmosphere, which was a major reason we chose this restaurant for our Valentine’s Day celebration. The service was also impressive—our waitress was attentive and always available whenever we needed assistance. We appreciated the small but thoughtful gesture of helping to hang our jackets.

However, the food did not meet our expectations. The starters were acceptable, but the main courses were rather disappointing. While the restaurant exudes a sense of luxury, with a set dinner menu offering only a few select options, we found the dishes themselves lacking in quality.

I ordered the pork as my main course, but it was overly oily and fatty, making it difficult to finish. Although I could see that the chef had put thought into the presentation and details, the overall taste was underwhelming. My partner opted for a medium-cooked steak with chips. Unfortunately, she found the steak to be undercooked on the inside, while the exterior was burnt and had an unpleasant, aged taste. The chips were overly soft, lacking any crispness, and seemed to be saturated with oil. Additionally, the snacks were excessively sweet, which further detracted from our dining experience.

The total bill came to £133 for two people, which is in line with what one would expect from a high-end restaurant. However, given the disappointing quality of the food, we felt that the experience did not justify the price. This left us feeling somewhat dissatisfied, and it ultimately put a slight damper on what was meant to be a special Valentine’s Day...

Stepping into Cafe St Honorė, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd teleported to a local bistro in a Parisian arrondissement, and a très chic one at that - all black and white marbled floors and crisp white tablecloths. But although the cafe boasts an elegant French interior and Gallic-inflected food to match, it is also proudly - and resolutely - Scottish. Ingredients are all sourced from the best possible local suppliers (each given due credit on the menu) and there's inventive use of more obscure produce such as woodruff or sweet cicely. This sustainable, local food-sourcing policy would be laudable but a bit redundant if the cooking on display wasn't up to scratch, but Chef Neil Forbes transforms his base materials into gastronomic gold. The panzanella was perfectly pitched: zesty, fresh, sweet and just a touch grassy. Poached Loch Duart salmon dissolved on the tongue, an exquisite buttery mouthful, its richness cut through by slugs of a crisp Chablis recommended to match. And a sticky-date pudding was a rebuke to those wary of Type 2 diabetes: this was a hot caramelly mess so orgiastic it'd be worth ruining your insulin production for. The food was decadent but robust: hearty servings packed with bold flavours and a pleasingly obscene amount of butter. All delivered by cheerful, attentive wait-staff. The perfect place for a relaxed...