Coro the Chocolate Cafe — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

I've probably never given a review this bad. I've been a customer since there was a Coro near the botanic garden, many years ago, I used to go there with my best friend who no longer lives in Edinburgh. The last time I was there was in October 2024 and I already noticed a fall in business, although I thought it was maybe they were just having a bad day! This weekend my friend came to visit Edinburgh and we went to Coro on Saturday, our special place. From the moment we walked in everything was different. A group of 4 people walked in ahead of us and weren't seated, despite there being free tables and no reserved sign. Strange...

We had booked in advance and the guy at the door (tall, thin man with dark hair) gave me the menus and said ''menus'' ''that table'' and he pointed to the table from the entrance and went back to his tablet, he didn't accompany us or anything, not what you would expect from someone who works face to face with the public. We sat down and after a while a girl came and we told her we needed a couple more minutes and she left, very nice, she was great. 30 seconds later the man from the beginning arrives and with his tablet he asks us for our order...we tried to tell him to give us a minute but he simply ignored us and asked for our order again. One of my friends was ready so she ordered. I don't understand how this man is facing the public because his social skills are -10. The order didn't take long to arrive, the truth is that the only thing that was acceptable were the pancakes with bacon and egg that one of us ordered. The other 3 orders, which were waffles, were simply disastrous. I'm going to put a photo with an example on the left of what I ordered the last time I made at Coro in October and on the right what I received on Saturday, being exactly the same order. The photo says it all... Each extra sauce costs £2, the extra strawberry £2.95, those 2 pieces of poorly made waffle with missing dough cost £6.95, I paid almost £14 for something that could have been made by a 3 year old child, not by supposed dessert professionals, you only have to see the photos on their Instagram. And not only the presentation but the quantity...and the quality of the product...disastrous. We didn't say anything, in the end this is not the fault of the staff but of who hires and trains them, that's why I decided to put this review. On the other hand, now there is a kind of self-service area where you can get your cutlery, glasses, etc. but it is empty and you have to be bothering the staff because they don't answer you in a nice way. When going to pay, Mr. Nice guy also tells us on the dataphone that if we want to leave a tip...NO. I felt disappointed and as someone who has worked in the hospitality industry for many years, I felt that the management/owners no longer care about this business anymore, because I don't understand how it can change so badly... They need to train the staff and, above all, choose them well! Afterwards, I read reviews and I'm not the only one who thinks this way, the reviews in general are horrible, a shame because you have a place with...

Worst service I’ve ever experienced in a cafe. My friend and I booked a table in advance, having visited several times to your last location. We arrived around 5 minutes before the time of our booking to be stood beside the kitchen / food preparation area where 3 members of staff were standing and not one greeting us or said they’d seat us soon. Another few customers came in behind us and commented on the lack of acknowledgement also. My friend then had to approach a member of staff after waiting around 10 minutes, the staff member had been back and forward filling up the water dispenser beside us and still had not said hello, when my friend asked if we’d be seated or if we were to just pick a seat she told us she’d be with us in two minutes and continued to go back again to fill the dispenser. She told her colleague with the pony tail we had a booking who then turned and stared at us then saying to the 3rd colleague “APPARENTLY there’s a booking” there was nothing apparent about the booking as we’d booked through your booking link online and just made us feel unwanted and uncomfortable. There was no friendly welcome or nice atmosphere atall. The member of staff who seated us did tell us it would be a longer wait due to staffing issues to which we waited around 30 minutes. During our wait a customer came in asking if she could get a table and the pony tail staff member again spoke to this woman in a very dismissive manner. Food was great and could not fault it but would be reluctant to visit again with the standard of service. Do not mind waiting for food when there’s staffing issues but having worked in customer service/hospitality and eating out atleast twice a week I know what is an acceptable standard of service and believe a warm welcome at the very least would have...

The service and overall experience were terrible. We’ve been to Scotland twice already, and this was by far the worst place we tried to eat at — and we couldn’t even finish our food.

First, when we entered, we were told to go back and wait at the entrance until someone seated us. We waited around 7–10 minutes just for a table. Once seated, we placed our order and then waited another 20–30 minutes. During that time, they even asked us to change tables because other people were coming in. After moving, we had to wait another 15 minutes, and only one item arrived — and it was wrong. They suggested we take it anyway “so it wouldn’t go to waste.” Of course, we refused since we were paying for it.

I ordered a crêpe with butter and sugar, but what arrived was a plain crêpe with nothing on it — not even butter or sugar. We also ordered a latte, which was honestly disgusting. Every 15–20 minutes, a single item would show up, always incomplete. We had no napkins, no knives or forks, no spoons. The coffee was awful, the crêpe tasted like nothing, and the so-called Belgian chocolate was disappointing.

The prices are not worth it, the service was poor, and we had to stand up several times to ask for basic things. When we finally decided to stop eating because the whole experience was just bad, we went to pay since nobody came to the table. Even then, it took around 7 minutes to get charged because nobody was paying attention.

Definitely the worst café experience we’ve had...