Cilantro — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Came here for a reunion dinner with me sister after I had travelled up from England and we hadn't seen each other for a very very long time.

It's a BYOB (Bring your own booze) as they don't have a license for serving alcohol but also means you can save a bit of money by going to the shops across the road yourself and bring whatever drink you fancy. Something in England we don't have much of so this was quite nice and different.

My sister and I don't tend to eat Indian food often as it can really be too spicy at times or upset our stomachs for a while. We actually had intended on having Rameb last night but by chance walked past Cilantro which was the best encounter we could have had last night.

Small and cosy, extremely friendly and warming service, run by a family which is very clear as you dive into the dishes themselves. Honestly everything about it all was faultless.

We had a creamy chicken dish alongside a lamb bhoona which were accompanied by the most lovely naan bread, rice and saag aloo . I tell you, the bread itself was perfectly thick and so tasty and one of the best chicken and saag aloo dishes I've ever had from any Indian restaurant.

Very generous with the portions and meat in the dishes and when we finished we didn't feel overly full but that perfectly satisfied I feel you should feel after a meal. We finished everything. Not a bit left on our bowls and plates.

You can always tell when a restaurant is run by a loving and caring family or owner in general. The food speaks for itself and the flavours just sing what the cooks was us to taste and hear.

Not surprised the place was fully booked when we had left (we went very early).

And no surprise they won new restaurant of the year too!

Thank you Cilantro for an absolutely wonderful meal especially on such an important day...

I wanted to love this restaurant. I have been looking for a small, independent Indian restaurant for some time and Cilantro has a good showing on Google.

We shared 4 dishes, the chicken liver masala, shatkora lamb, bhaji sag, peshwari naan. I just fancied the livers which is a dish not too common in restaurants and, although we would normally “stress test” a new Indian restaurant by choosing the Rogan Josh {one of our favourites so we can easily compare restaurants} we decided to try something from their Specialities section. It was a toss up between the “MillyJilly” {because I found the name put a smile on my face} but this dish had both lamb and chicken and we were after a lamb dish.

The spices on the chicken livers were undercooked so felt gritty and tasted raw, whilst the chicken livers were too over cooked {they were past tender, rubbery instead of creamy and didn’t have a smooth texture} and therefore lacked the meaty flavour. Maybe the spices needed preparing much sooner. A couple sitting at the table next to us also ordered the livers which he was enjoying but his partner didn’t like the taste because the livers were too strong.

The lamb was tender and broke easily just with a fork. The Shatkora fruit is similar to lime {it is normally only used in cooking as it offers an intense and bitter taste} and worked perfectly well. I was hoping for a bit of bright colouring just to give the dish a presentational lift.

The bhaji sag & peshwari naan were both excellent.

Overall, I would try here again just for the bhaji, naan, friendly service and to support a local restaurant. Maybe next time I will do the “stress test” and let you know...

Recently visited Cilantro on a long weekend trip to Edinburgh. After seeing the amazing reviews I was keen to book a table, and did so 1.5 months in advance. The date and time of our reservation soon came around and we arrived at Cilantro. Unfortunately, we were told there was an error on the system, and were told there was no table for us. We were disappointed to say the least! The staff member offered us vouchers, but these were no good as we were only there for the weekend. He then said we could have the food delivered to our Air B&B. I wondered if we could have any discount for the inconvenience, which we said we could. When we got back to the Air B&B we called the restaurant and ordered our food, and were give a reasonable discount and an apology. The food arrived within the specified time and was hot and fresh. All the food was delicious! None of us could fault it, all enjoying our meals. My favourite was the garlic naan - super fluffy and super garlicky!

About 30m after we finished our food I had a call from Cilantro, asking if we enjoyed our meal/everything was okay, and again apologising. I feel this was a very professional and excellent close to managing the situation.

In sum, the food here IS incredible. It is unfortunate we were unable to dine at the restaurant due to an error on their booking system. Nevertheless, the staff at Cilantro managed the error as best they could, and I really...