Condita — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

We were super excited to try this Michelin Star restaurant, we've been in quite a few, so we knew what to expect. Unfortunately our experience wasn't memorable, apart from the staff that was really nice. First, the atmosphere, the restaurant is not cozy at all, empty walls (with some blue paintings), no music, tables aren't well decorated, and chairs not really comfy (specially if you stay there 3hours), not a michelin star ambient TBH. The menu, is not written, so you don't have any idea what you're eating, because you can't remember all the dish description... Then the waiting among dishes... we waited for more than 40min between the mushroom dish and the meat (this latest one arrived in two times with another 20 min delay in between them...) because of the delay in the kitchen...) with only 4 tables and 8 guests, you can't have guests waiting 40 min and then another 20 min (so basically an hour without eating anything at all...) Then the food... apart from the snacks and desserts, dishes are average, especially for a michelin star restaurant, nothing WOW, and one thing is to have Scottish ingredients, and the other that a main is a chicken leg and another one is mushrooms, and as a starter (onion and potato), the most basic and cheap ingredients... the sauce of the meat, wasn't creamy indeed it was quite liquid and vinegar / wine flavour (meaning that due to the delay in the kitchen maybe they didn't prepare as it should be). We know how a tasting menu works, and here some of the mains were smaller than snacks, first time we went to michelin star or tasting menu restaurant and we ended the night hungry (the 1h waiting didn't help, that's for sure) Drinks... not soft drinks, not beers, (only a tea as soft drink), plus when they offer at the beginning the first glass, they bring 3 bottles to the table asking you to chose (thought it would be complimentary) as we never saw the drink menu until later, and no... £13 per glass, that you didn't even had a chance to check first .... (it feels like a trap, to increase the ticket). If it's not complimentary, they should offer you first to review the drink list and then they can suggest if you want a champagne, not that they bring 3 bottles to the table (you choose withouth seen the prices) and then voila... Definetely not a place to come back and, of course not to recommend, it should be reviewed which restaurants get a michelin star, because it's not only about the way of cooking food, it's also the service (40 + 20 min delay...), the atmosphere, the quality of the ingredients and the value for customers (you can't offer drinks without saying that you'll be charged for them, becasue you need to show the drinks...

I can understand why this restaurant earned a Michelin star, but I think this is the weakest one in Edinburgh.

The good: The space is nice enough, and I liked the art and installation aesthetic, along with the hand illustrated menus.

The food was enjoyable, and managed to avoid the frequent scourge of salty butteriness often used to excuse the lack of subtle flavour.

The menu was well balanced and managed to present a relatively high variety of vegetables cooked in a selection of ways to emphasise texture and technique.

The bad: The portions are particularly small, even for tasting menus, to the extent they clearly felt self conscious so served multiple snack courses together. This meant a 10 course menu, turned into about 8. A low point was Cod equivalent to half a fish finger or the 1/3 of a partridge breast each.

Despite being 8 courses, the pace of service felt slow. They use a finishing kitchen visible outside the main kitchen, and on several occasions food sat finished but neglected for 20 minutes while the staff discussed upcoming events. This compounded the angst of such small portions.

The food menu had some nice elements, but the paired wines were very disappointing. Michelin restaurants always are keen on the rarer or more unusual (gimmicky) type wines, but this was another level. I've never been disappointed by 4 of 5 wines offered with a meal, but following a rather nice (and fairly unusual champagne) we were offered dull, flavourless glass after glass. It may be petty, but the rivals would offer 6 or 7 glasses with 10 courses which would be far more enjoyable. Their wine menu clearly has some good wines, but the ones paired were disappointed to the extent I resented. I remarked that a couple of the wines were entirely lost with the [moderate] flavours of the dishes, and the disinterest of response made it appear that they simply didn't care (or were trying to prioritise getting rid of the bad stuff).

This is not a bad restaurant, and the staff were friendly enough to make a pleasant evening, but I do not think I'd visit again until I'd exhausted every other star in Edinburgh. If I was wanting to spend £250 pp, I'd be disappointed by all the negatives and would expect with high confidence not to encounter them at one of...

The food was perfect, a masterful composition of flavours and textures. The service was polite and prompt, right up until the final moments of our dining experience. I don’t drink alcohol and had been enjoying the sparkling tea (a very nice accompaniment to the meal) but declined a third glass to go with desserts. My husband had the paired wines which he really enjoyed, but wasn’t offered a dessert wine which he would definitely have wanted. I can only assume that my declining the final drink was taken to mean both of us, but the waiter spoke directly to me and neither of us thought this would mean nobody would offer him another drink. It’s a shame because up until that point, Patrick had done such a good job and been very knowledgeable with his wine pairings.

We also saw other diners who had ordered coffee being offered petit fours while we were not, which seems oddly churlish considering dinner for two cost £400 and other restaurants of this calibre don’t require an extra expenditure to round off the meal. We would also have liked to have been offered a taxi like other diners we saw, but after my declined of the drink and coffee it felt like no further service was forthcoming. These feel like relatively small nits to pick, but at a Michelin starred restaurant where the experience is everything they do make or break the...