David Bann Restaurant — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Im prefacing this bad review by pointing out that it concerns the waiting staff, not the kitchen as the food was lovely as usual. We went to David Bann to celebrate a birthday as a group of friends and at the beginning of the meal the waitress dropped a bottle of water which shattered and my friend and I got covered in shards of glass (unfortunate accident, but it happens). We had to go to the bathroom to remove them from our face, lashes, hair. Returning to the table, absolutely nobody checked on us or provided an apology, the rest of the meal followed its course as if nothing happened. I suppose shards of glass flying into our faces wasn’t worth their time.

We get brought the bill at the end and surprise, we got charged for the bottle of water that was broken by the waitress ? We had to request that it be taken off the bill, which is mind blowing to me. A manager then provided the final bill to us and we pointed out the extremely poor experience, to which her only reply was ‘yep, sorry. I wasn’t made aware’, no solution, discount or sympathy offered, and she turned her back on us and walked away the second the bill was settled. Clearly it wasn’t her problem.

The cherry on top had to be when they kept part of the deposit paid when two of our friends could not make it (we ended up being a table of 6 instead of 8, and they were able to make the table available for other customers). We were told it was policy and that it was on us, I guess it’s not in their policy to provide decent customer service or a pleasant experience to their customers.

Writing this review as I am still finding pieces of glass in my hair, I will say go to this restaurant for good food, but if you idea of good service is anything more than having a plate delivered to your table, it’s maybe not the...

Absolutely fantastic.

We had the pleasure of dining at the David Bann Restaurant in Edinburgh whilst visiting for the Fringe festival and it's up there with one of the most memorable parts of the trip.

I can not put into words how delicious the food there is. As well as our meals looking, smelling and tasting amazing, we could hear other customers leaving their compliments to the chef on their way out so I think it's a fair assumption that the quality goes across the menu.

I had the special spinach and mushroom soup for starters which was maybe the best soup I've ever tasted. Rich, deep, bold creamy deliciousness seasoned to perfection. The sort that made me say ooooo yummy, out load, in public. (Again my compliments to the chef) For mains I had the cauliflower curry which was really good, you could taste the freshness of the ingredients and i found the semolina to be a nice touch too. The portions are a great size, unfortunately so good i was too full for pudding. From what i saw they looked amazing too.

We hadn't booked and they were full when we walked in so we were advised to try again in 15 minutes and thankfully we did and were seated, promptly given menu's and water with fresh fruit in (which was a lovely touch) It's elegantly decorated with soft lighting and a relaxed atmosphere. Another thing that stood out was how smooth the service was, everyone worked together and around each other seamlessly and with get efficiency.

There are many gluten free and vegan options.

I really couldn't recommend this place more. Absolutely everything is top quality and the bill was around 30% less than what we were expecting to pay.

My appreciation to everyone at the David Bann Restaurant for an unforgettable meal and...

I would not recommend this place to anyone at all!! I would give it a 0 if I could. Being a vegetarian/vegan restaurant this is not a very inclusive restaurant for people with dietary requirements for religious and non alcohol based purposes. All the dishes contained alcohol in them. When we asked the waiter if they could remove the alcohol, we were told it is not possible, which I find to be baffling as my expectation is that the food would be cooked from scratch. There was only one real option, which was the haggis. That came with a whisky based sauce, we were told it’s not possible to have it alcohol free, until another member of my party said can you not put the sauce on the food in which we were told they could remove the sauce from the dish. When the food arrived it was inedible, nobody from our party which there were 4, were able to consume the meal. In addition to that, the non-alcoholic drinks we ordered took ages to arrive and arrived after we had finish the starters. One waiter told us it was because they misplaced the drinks ticket, and another waiter told us it was because the printer was broken, it was confusing and frustrating considering it was extremely hot in the restaurant on a very warm day. A member of my party had to ask the waiter to switch the A/C on in the restaurant as it was unbearably hot. We expressed our disappointment to the waiters, they made no effort to accommodate us, no real effort was made to offer a replacement in the form of a main meal or a dessert. They handed us the bill for the full amount for food we had not eaten. This is the worst dining experience...