Cairngorm Coffee — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

As a an Australian, trying to find a decent coffee outside your home country can become a real challenge. Cairngorm Coffee was a bright oasis in a desert of chain coffee shops.

This review is solely for the coffee - I didn’t try any of the food on offer.

I first ordered a flat white (£3.50 / AU$6.30) which was presented in a 6oz (ish) cup (not the soup bowls I’ve seen elsewhere). The coffee was on the lower side of warm, I’d have preferred just a couple more degrees warmer, but that’s just a minor quibble. Milk texture was excellent, latte art was reasonable. The coffee was good, but it was obvious that the roast profile / extract was playing to a very specific palate. There seems to be a trend in all artisan roasters in this country that espresso coffee should lead with bitterness, and this was no different. That was a shame, as it really took away from the sweetness and deeper flavours that were buried in the cup and therefore harder to distinguish. Overall, it was an excellent flat white, and forgiving the bitterness was easy enough.

I next had the batch brew (Kenyan) (£3.20 / AU$5.70) which was smooth, without bitterness (yay!) and with complex flavours that developed well as the coffee cooled. Stone fruit / stewed fruit flavours were most prominent, with hints of dark chocolate and smoky undertones. For a coffee that had probably been sitting in a thermos for a number of hours, this really shone.

It’s a shame that Cairngorm coffee don’t offer pour-over or other filter options - I’m sure they’d be excellent.

Overall, I was impressed by both their espresso based and filter coffee. While the coffee may not be not world leading, they are certainly leading in their corner...

The coffee we had was pleasant, but the service and atmosphere were nothing short of abysmal. We ordered an oat cappuccino and paid for warm cow’s milk for our baby. What followed was a shocking display of incompetence and complacency that left us deeply concerned.

When the milk arrived, it appeared to be oat milk, not cow’s milk. We raised this issue with the server, who dismissively responded, “Oh, this is what the barista gave me, so it must be cow’s milk,” and simply walked away without offering to check or rectify the issue. Her indifference was astonishing.

My husband had to go back twice to address the problem himself. On the second attempt, the manager—who wasn’t present earlier—finally acknowledged the mistake and replaced the milk. To be absolutely clear : this was something we paid for, not a favour they were doing for us. What’s most concerning is the casual attitude displayed by the staff toward what could have been a serious allergy risk.

We are all too aware of the tragic consequences food allergies can have, including fatalities. Instead of acknowledging their mistake and handling it responsibly, the staff treated us as though we were an inconvenience for simply requesting what we had ordered and paid for.

Your team simply can’t be trusted with something as simple as distinguishing between cow’s milk and oat milk, how can customers trust you with their safety?

(We visited...

The most bizarre experience of any coffee shop. The gentleman going into the coffee shop ahead of us held the door for us and then we went to the counter to get drinks to sit in. However it turned out the gent had taken thr last table but then the server tried to clear him out even though he was first so we told them that he was here before us.

Another couple said we could have the end of their massive 6 person table they weren't using but the staff said we couldn't share tables so we would have to wait.

That was all fine except they then told us to wait outside in rhe pouring rain even though they had a massive space to the right side of their tills with an L shaped bar table where they could have either put bar stools for us to sit or at least let us stay out the way and still metres from anyone.

Absolutely bizarre. Possibly the worst customer service I have ever seen in a coffee shop - I have no idea how they maintain...