Grays Mill — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Last Wednesday on a particularly dreich Edinburgh afternoon, the kind where your soul feels damp and your socks feel like sponges, my work colleague and I found ourselves ravenous and desperate. The kind of hunger that makes you start looking at lampposts like they might be edible. As we squelched our way down the street, we spotted a sign outside Grays Mill promising food, and like a mirage in a calorific desert, we clung to the hope of some hearty pub grub to warm us up and settle the growling beasts in our bellies.

We envisioned steak pies, scampi and chips, maybe even a cheeky all-day breakfast. You know, the sort of food that hugs your insides while the rain abuses your outsides. But alas, reality had other plans.

As we stepped inside, we were greeted by... silence. Not the peaceful kind, the eerie kind. The “has the apocalypse started and we missed the memo?” kind. The pub was completely empty. Not a soul in sight. It was midday — peak lunch hour — yet the place felt like it had been abandoned since 1997. There was a faint smell in the air — hard to describe but somewhere between old mop and despair. Not exactly appetising.

We considered turning around and leaving. In fact, I think every cell in my body was begging me to do just that. But hunger and torrential rain are powerful motivators. So, like two weary explorers who'd come too far to turn back, we pressed on and asked for a menu.

This was perhaps the most tragic part of the story. The menu consisted of three items. Three. Not pages. Items. I can’t even remember what the other two were, because all I could focus on was the burger and chips. “How wrong can a burger and chips go?” I asked, as if challenging the universe.

Spoiler alert: very wrong.

We placed our order — £11 for a burger and chips — and sat down. A short time later, the food arrived. I use the word “food” loosely. The chips looked as though they had been shown a photo of a deep fryer and then air-dried on a damp windowsill. Pale, flabby, and suspiciously undercooked, they had the texture of cold Play-Doh and none of the charm. The burger itself could only be described as something that had escaped from a vending machine on a motorway in 2006. It had the unmistakable look, feel, and taste of a Rustlers burger — the microwave classic that somehow tastes of both nothing and regret.

The bun was sad. The patty was thinner than my will to carry on. And the tomato ketchup — oh, the ketchup — had reached that tragic, watery stage where it separates like an old married couple that’s just waiting for the paperwork. The whole thing felt like an assault on the concept of lunch itself.

The only positive in this entire experience was the woman who came out from the kitchen (or whatever portal this meal had emerged from). She was friendly and cheerful, bless her. But honestly, if I had served that to another human being, I’d have considered entering the Witness Protection Program.

We ate just enough to stop our stomachs making noise but immediately regretted it. I felt off for the rest of the day — not full, not satisfied, just... betrayed. My stomach made sounds that no stomach should make. At one point I genuinely wondered if I could sue a tomato for emotional damage.

All in all, Grays Mill is probably a decent place for a pint if you’ve lost all sense of smell, but as a lunch destination, I’d suggest walking on. Even in the rain. Even barefoot.

In conclusion: if you’re hungry, go literally anywhere else. Eat your own shoe if you must. It’ll be more satisfying, and probably...

Really enjoyed my visit here, had the dog at the vets so killed some time while waiting on a taxi home, really welcoming, friendly and chatty staff. Good juke box and the punters also chatted away. Dog friendly too which is great for me if I'm up that way again....

Put on great spread for my brothers funeral staff were very attentive even though a funeral atmosphere amazing as always and juke box second to none keep up good work guys you did ally proud as it was all his planning thanks...