Don't tell Mama Brunch Bar — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

We came to eat here during our visit in Edinburgh after reading all the positive reviews. My partner and I were genuinely surprised at the lack of quality in food and the horrendous service.

We ordered the Royal Sandwich and the Pancakes. We waited for more than 35 minutes (they only seemingly remembered about our food once we inquired), despite a very small sized cafe. What we received did in no way justify the length of our wait. The pancakes were the size of the diameter of the top of my closed fist, were tasteless and nearly as thin as crepes. Seeing that you get four of the teeny slices at the generous cost of £11 I was genuinely let down. As someone who lives in London, I am no stranger to expensive food, but I expect my moneys worth in return. The sandwich consisted of a slice of lettuce, a ham slice and some sauce spread on it, with uninspiring bread. The sandwich alone does not seem to have taken more than thirty seconds to assemble. Similar to the pancakes, underwhelming taste, especially for £13.

The ambience of the place itself is fine, but not overly cosy with the choice of music being played in the cafe.

Overall, in no good conscience would I recommend this place, especially seeing that there’s such fantastic options close by on the same road. We went to the Treehouse Cafe the day after for breakfast, where the service was incredibly lovely, attentive, and the food incredibly well priced for the amount of delicious food we received.

(No but seriously, don’t tell your Mama, because she’ll be upset you’re wasting...

Don't Tell Mama is not a place to bring your laptop, work for hours while nursing a coffee. It's not fair and they'll ask you not to.

It also gets too busy.

Tip: However, there are power points in the corridor down the side and around the corner from the main area. They're also high tables suitable for two or one and a laptop here.

I'm a fan! The coffee is tasty and there's a more cosmopolitan menu than baking affairs.

I recommend the Cretan omlette, but it's more like a soft pizza holding lightly scrambled egg than a traditional omlette. It's a clever mix, finding a niche in that savoury spot you might want for brunch. Indeed, it's in the brunch column of their menu.

Repeatedly, I've found staff to be friendly and helpful. It does get very busy, though, so don't expect lazy bants. You'll get polite efficiency and that's exactly what I'd want.

The counter area is a physical bottleneck. It can't be helped, either they sacrifice a significant portion of the main cafe to a queuing area or the tables come up close.

I suspect this isn't the ideal location to bring a pushchair. I recommend it to almost...

I have no idea how this so rated so high, it shocks me how disappointed I was when coming here for tea and breakfast… the food portions where small, took extremely long to come out (especially for what we ordered), overpriced (for the amount of food and drink we got).

We ordered the club sandwich and pancakes. The club sandwich was a simple dish, it would take less than 5 minutes to construct, yet took 30-45 minutes to come out. The pancakes were small and didn’t really taste how people described, again with the raving reviews.

Not to mention people who came in well after us had their dishes served first. Very unimpressed. I think this is the highest rated cafe over eaten at, and was by far the in the bottom 3 ever.

Truly the biggest disappointment I’ve ever had from a place that sells food. Definitely don’t tell mama, she would be so...