Lady Libertine — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

We had high hopes for Lady Libertine during a special weekend in Edinburgh, but unfortunately, the experience turned out to be really disappointing. Despite booking a table four weeks in advance for 7:30 PM, our evening was riddled with poor service, lack of communication, and an unwelcoming atmosphere.

When we arrived, our table wasn’t ready. We were directed to the bar, but it was so overcrowded that we couldn’t sit down, or even stand at the bar to order a drink. Standing in a cramped, noisy corner with people pushing past us was not the start we’d expected.

Once eventually seated, things didn’t improve. Despite requesting a romantic table, we were placed next to a loud party of 12, making conversation impossible. To add to the frustration, the menu was misleading, featuring items like Jersey Royals, which definitely aren’t in season in December, raising concerns about the menu’s authenticity.

The real disappointment came when we tried to order. Six dishes were unavailable, including my first, second, and third choices, yet this wasn’t mentioned when we were handed the menu - which was only a small menu to begin with. To make matters worse, the server’s lack of communication and absence of an apology left us feeling pretty dismissed and upset.

We waited ages for food, with no updates from the staff nor checkback to offer more drinks, while nearby tables—seated after us—were already receiving their meals. By 8:30 PM, having had just one drink, with no sign of our food, and with our booking due to end at 9 PM, we decided to leave and get a takeaway instead. Having been there for over an hour - two thirds of the time they’d allowed us for our booking - the only thing we had consumed was one drink each, which we paid for before walking out.

For a restaurant with the slogan “experience the extraordinary”, the only extraordinary thing about it was how utterly rubbish it was. The evening was a complete letdown. Poor organisation, inattentive service, and an unwelcoming atmosphere ruined what was supposed to be a memorable night.

As it may have been a one-off, we emailed the restaurant with our feedback directly before posting a review, to highlight the issues and request an explanation. We received an automated response to say we’d receive a reply within 48 hours - but, more than 48 hours later, we haven’t received any acknowledgment from them, suggesting that they simply do not care.

If you’re considering Lady Libertine, I’d recommend looking elsewhere: the overwhelming impression we got was that they care only for overcrowding their venue with excessive bookings and walk-ins to make as much money as possible, irrespective of the impact on guest experience. Edinburgh has so many brilliant restaurants and this is not one of them. Unless your idea of a great evening is sitting in a dark noisy cave and being ignored for an hour, go literally...

I wanted to love Lady Libertine, but unfortunately didn't have a very positive experience.

Firstly, the music downstairs (where the main menu is served) is ridiculously loud. The small group I was with found it difficult to hear each other speak, and we struggled to hear the waiting staff (they seemed to struggle to hear us, too, which may have contributed to some of the issues we had with service). It might have seemed more understandable if it had been late on a Friday or Saturday, but this was midweek at dinner time.

Service was confused. Our waitress kept taking away and then reinstating our menus, seemingly at random. She asked whether we would like all the food to come together, but despite us having said "yes" it then came piecemeal. (Which we probably wouldn't have minded, it was just a tad baffling when we'd been given and taken the opportunity to specifically ask for it all at once.) Regardless of which wines we requested she would simply asked us "you want white wine?", and would then need to return to ask us again which we had ordered. And to round things off, she unfortunately upended a tray of drinks onto my lap, drenching me and my bag. I appreciate that this is just one of those things that could happen to anyone, and another member of staff comped our table the replacement drinks, which was a welcome gesture. However, I had to leave at that point as I was so soaking wet that I needed to change my clothes, so it would have been of more benefit to me if they had offered to take something off my bill! (I hadn't actually ordered another drink.)

However, the reason I've given three stars is that the food itself was extremely good, and unexpectedly good value. The menu is just the right length, with a couple of specials thrown in for good measure; tempting vegetarian options are well represented; the flavour and texture combinations are excellent; and the wine list is pleasingly interesting. My one quibble is that the flatbreads for the flatbread dishes we ordered came on the side (rather than under the other components of each dish, which is what I was expecting - I had ordered a sabich, which would normally be served as a filled flatbread) - this would have been fine, except that the plates the dishes were served on were so small that you couldn't create a filled/rolled flatbread unless you messily tried to remove all the food from the plate and squeeze the flatbread underneath.

I should add that I have previously had lunch in the upstairs area, which is beautiful, light and airy, and where the music was at a much more tolerable volume! (Though that may just have been because it was lunchtime.) The food options upstairs are more limited - the snacks I had were delicious, good value and beautifully presented; it would just be good if the more substantial dishes from downstairs could be served...

Came here with another couple for cocktails. Although the drinks were made well, the staff’s lack of professionalism and rudeness was astonishing. Firstly one of our party likes bottled Budweiser rather than cocktails, now OK we understand not every establishment will stock this but when we asked, the waitress laughed at us with a look of shock as as if we had asked for something they would not ever consider a worthy drink. After a couple of rounds, we then asked who we later dis covered was a manager if they had ‘bar nuts’ like peanuts etc to go with the drinks and we were informed by him they had cashews and that he would bring some over. We realised they were actually a mixture of natural walnuts, hazelnuts and cashews but we felt they accompanied the drinks so asked for another bowl as there were four of us and it was a very small ramekin style bowl. The shock came when we asked for the bill, now we had ordered over £120 of drinks between the four of us so were shocked to see that the nuts, detailed on the bill as House Smoked Nuts had been charged at £9! We asked the waitress that we never ordered any menu item as far as we were aware nor were we informed or any cost but she said she could remove the cost and would get her manager to assist us but had ‘popped upstairs for a moment’. Bobby who was the gentleman we asked about the nuts to begin with then appeared absolutely stinking of smoke asking what the issue was. We explained that when we asked him for bar nuts, at no point did he say they were chargeable not to mention they were not just cashews as he stated not were they smoked as described on the bill, however he was certainly ‘smoked’. He went on to say, we ordered them so we got them and were charged and when we agreed that it may have been a breakdown in communication and due to the size of bill, a festive gesture would have been to remove the charge, he replied, “I’m not wanting to argue but you did order them and we have to buy them in so I’m not willing remove them from the bill”. At that point I asked therefore to have the service charge removed which was discretionary and was actually 40% more than the cost of the nuts, thinking he would see sense and remove the nuts whilst still getting the service charge for the staff, but no, he said “yeah I’ll do that” and gave us a new bill with service charge removed, absolutely mind blowing and something I’m sure the Bon Vivant Group nor Ms Jackson the MD would be very proud of. Poor service and small details that could have been avoided and / or rectified, yet the opposite has been achieved resulting in an honest poor review and personal word of mouth resulting in loss of customer retention. Speechless, hospitality...