Grand Café — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

I am sorry to have to report our experience in The Grand Cafe yesterday was pretty appalling. My daughter had given her aunt, my sister, the afternoon tea experience as a treat for her 60th birthday and we were all looking forward to it.

Right from the start things were bad. We arrived and waited 15 minutes standing to be greeted and seated. Two members of staff hurried about looking stressed or disinterested. Not once did they say hello, apologise for the wait or even look our way. Eventually one of them came to us asking what we wanted and asked accusingly if we had a reservation. Eventually he found my daughters name and moaned that it had been an online booking, which seemed to be a big problem for him. We were not welcomed at all. Not a good start. Were hurriedly taken to a wet and draughty table, barked at with instructions of how the tea would proceed before we could even sit down, then left alone. It was uncomfortable, chilly and not feeling great. I caught his eye again and asked if we could move to the sofa that was then vacant. He actually said it would really help as he needed our table for a big party. We were moved and at least it was more comfortable. Sadly though we sat for 20 minutes until we had to ask to be served. There was passive aggression from the member of staff who said we had moved so it had caused a problem. OK..........? We ordered a bottle of prosecco, I even pointed to it on the menu, and waited ....... 15 minutes later one glass of prosecco came. We said it must be a mistake, it wasn't ours. They tried the next table, but no. Waiter no. 1 then came over and said that was what we had ordered. We said we had ordered a bottle. No apology. Just irritation. We thought we would just ask for 3 glasses of champagne instead, as by then we were needing something happy!! Still no sign of afternoon tea. 10 minutes later after asking where our food and tea was it was brought resentfully. The ladies at the next table were clearly experiencing similar things and it became funny between us all as watched "Fawlty Towers " unfold. We had to laugh or we could have cried! My daughter was so upset the treat was not turning out the way she had planned it. The food was disappointing, too few questionable sandwiches, and some uninspiring cakes. The scones were OK, but the two ladies at the next table didn't get their cream despite asking several times for it.

We asked for the bill and waited 20 minutes before asking again. We were moodily told that because we'd moved and changed our drink order it was being worked out still!

Eventually we got the bill, but no one came to take our money. So tempting just to leave!! No one would have noticed or cared! But we didn't. Eventually my daughter had to find someone to take our money. We had debated whether to pay the bill at all, or to ask that service charge was deducted, owing to the no service! But decided to pay but complain to the manager next day.

I phoned today and was told the restaurant manager would phone me after service. She did not. She was probably dealing with all the other complaints from yesterday that we read in reviews on trip advisor later.

I understand its a hard time for the hospitality sector right now, and staff are hard to come by. But I think people pulled in off the street to help would have made a far better job of it than your moody, disinterested and unwelcoming staff. We paid a lot of money for this afternoon and it was so awful it was almost funny. I would like a full refund, an apology, not a voucher, as frankly I will never come back and will tell everyone to avoid at all costs! I tried to do the nice thing and not report publicly. But with no response I was forced to tell all. Look forward to...

This is a very honest review of the lunch I experienced yesterday (2nd Feb). I had very high expectations of this restaurant based on various pictures and reviews I had seen. My wife and I were greeted well and shown to our table and unfortunately went all downhill from there. We both ordered the Cullen Skink for starters but only one arrived. After a few minutes it was apparent that they had forgotten one so I asked if it was on its way? No explanation as to why there was a delay was given, nor was there an apology. Obviously the waiter had just put one on the till instead of two. Easy mistake to make and all would have been forgiven if only there was the slightest communication from the waiting staff. When mine finally came it looked very different from the one that came previously. One lacked any liquid and reflected more a broth in texture, the other was swimming in liquid. I will attach pictures to show. For my wife’s main course, she ordered the vegetarian hot pot which on the menu said included seitan (protein made from wheat). When she asked the waiter upon ordering if the dish was good, he replied “I’m not sure as I don’t eat meat”. Hello, the dish is vegetarian! The waiter should know the menu he is serving to his customers. When the main came, my wife noticed there was no seitan in the dish, therefore we notified the manager who didn’t even know what it was as he responded “yes there is finely chopped sage in there”. We said “no, not sage, seitan” and he had a very blank expression indicting he had no clue either what the ingredient was that was supposed to be an integral part of the dish. The manager disappeared for 5 minutes to then come back and tell us due to the six nations there was a supply issue. The six nations wasn’t even on that weekend due to the two week break so hardly a valid excuse. Being in the industry myself, the first thing a restaurant manager should do is ask the chef if anything is off the menu today, because if they don’t know, then the customer certainly won’t know either. The atmosphere was completely ruined so we asked for the bill. The waiter took 10% off the bill for the wait on the starters but still had the gall to charge us £22 for a vegetarian hotpot that missed the main ingredient. We expressed our disappointment about this and it was removed. It is a shame as this place looks beautiful and the company has clearly invested money into the restaurant but a restaurants biggest asset will always be their staff and I did not witness anything that day to merit me wanting to return. Service needs to be the main focus here, and if the “manager” spent less time dancing at the bar whilst waiting for drinks and more time overseeing the restaurant, it might have half a chance...

This is a review of their afternoon tea

Overall: 3.9/5

Let me start with the positives,

Atmosphere (4/5)

1.1 facility & decor (5/5) Their interior design is gorgeous—I absolutely love their upholstered couches/seats, those were my favorite part. I also love the high-ceiling, mezzanine design and the marble columns, that always makes a room feels grand a spacious. The wood paneling and lights are also beautiful.

1.2 Tableware (3/5) Thats’s where I have to subtract a star from the atmosphere. For a supposedly fancy place, their tea set was disappointing. The tea cup was an €8 illy cup with its red square logo on it (aren’t they a coffee company?). And the wrong filter was used for the teapot, so that the lid wasn’t properly closed. And the teapot was absolutely sizzling all over when it came up, including the handle, I almost burned myself (wish the waiter could have warned me.) And instead of a proper cloth napkin, we only got a paper napkin (which i used to help me pour my tea.)

Also, their glass cup looked cloudy (I’m sure it was just old with stains and not dirty—still, one would expect better from a place that looks like this. See the picture attached.)

The faucet at the bathroom was also unfortunately one of those that tries to boil you alive and whose temperature can’t be changed. I do appreciate the proper hand towels though.

1.3 Music I hope the soundtrack could have been more “posh”, to match the decor, or at least better than what they played.

Service (3.7) Friendly. And my food and tea came very quick. They did kind of seem to forget about me after the beginning though. I’m waiting for someone to come by so I can ask for my bill as I’m writing this. (Update: I guess they thought I already paid a deposit when I booked my afternoon tea. However, I actually just walked in. Maybe that’s why no one came to give me my bill.)

(Incidentally, while this is not very food-critic of me, their male staff members were all so hot for no reason.)

Food (3.8/5) The €32.95* we paid we more for the ambiance, I suppose. It was pretty standard afternoon tea stuff: finger sandwiches, scones, and sweet and savory stuff. I did, however, very much enjoyed their mushroom tart (at least that’s what I think it was.) The sweet treats were not bad but not remarkable as well. The scones weren’t obviously warm/freshly baked when they came out. While they did rise nicely and is crunchy/crumbly on the outside, the inside felt a little too dense.

*for some reason, I thought the afternoon tea was €60 while I was waiting for my bill, which made my review a little more critical. Turned out it was half the price, which makes it all very reasonable. It’s not a bad deal to enjoy a fancy environment like this with a...