Monteiths — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

First the positives: Great staff who take pride providing excellent customer care.

We were welcomed with a complimentary glass of prosecco to celebrate my husband's 65th birthday, which was a lovely touch.

The barman took the time to come to our table to ask our likes and dislikes, resulting in two truly superb cocktails. He gave me the 'recipe' for mine and while I doubt I can make one as good as his it will be fun to try.

We were seated at the tiniest of tables that was suitable for drinks only but not for dinner. We asked to be moved, and we were into a very dark corner. The restaurant is on the very dim side of atmospheric but we had to hold a candle up to read the menu.

The food was mostly disappointing, but starting with the positives, the sourdough bread and house butter was excellent. My husband's starter of whisky cured salmon was thoroughly enjoyed, and his main of venison loin was perfectly cooked and again thoroughly enjoyed. He thought the seasoning was a little over but not so that it spoiled his enjoyment.

My starter of steak tartare was the worst example of what should be a very fine dish that I've ever had the misfortune to eat. The steak was brown not the vibrant deep red of aged beef that it should be, although the inclusion of harissa may have discoloured it. I didn't detect any harissa though, probably because of the over abundance of salt. It was vinegary tasting too. The accompanying game chips were also over salted and combining the two together was lip puckering and eye squinting. My husband had a taste and was sorely tempted to spit it out. They did apologise and it was removed from the bill.

For sides we asked for triple cooked chips and heritage tomatoes. The chips were beautifully crisp but a little salty. The tomatoes, the slices of which barely amounted to a whole small one, were incredibly salty.

My main of (perfectly cooked) lamb rump with chicory, pea puree and minted jus was inedible. One mouthful had me reaching for the water. What is with the chef and salt!

They offered to take it off the menu but I was embarrassed after the starter so said not to remove it. They brought me, and without charge, some additional chips and a tomato salad both sans salt. Both were good and the tomato portion was the size that you'd expect for a side dish, not the miniscule portion that was served earlier.

We shared a dessert of orange and date pudding, salted caramel sauce and ice cream. It was heavenly!

The bill arrived: the lamb rump at £29 was there but we weren't charged for the two very excellent cocktails. We had two bottles of an excellent white wine. The cost was £223. Which wouldn't have been so bad if I'd actually had a meal instead of just a plate of complimentary tomatoes and a few chips.

Our experience wasn't great and it put a damper on our evening and my husband's birthday dinner. We had travelled from Cumbria specifically to eat at Monteiths.

However, it should be pointed out that the customer service in dealing with the issues we experienced was exemplary.

But that chef needs to learn some restraint when adding salt. There is salt on the table should anyone want more.

The old adage 'you can add but you can't take away' was...

IF you are looking for an upscale experience, bypass this one. Not because of staff but because the management is obviously terrible. I have never given a 1-star rating, so this is difficult. Good for drinks, but not service or food. It’s actually not so much the staffs fault, but I give management a big fat F. I’ve had amazing experiences at many different places in Edinburgh (Witchery, Divino Enoteca, Dome, Single Malt Scotch Whiskey Society, Chop House, La Garrigue, as examples of exemplary dining...) At dinner, we asked for a suggestion and we felt taken advantage of for sure. Initially we thought the wine just needed to breathe, however, after further investigation we realized they were trying to get rid of bad wine. The cork broke as it was being served and the wine was chalky the entire hour we tried to wait for it to decant. Started off alright with sitting at bar while we waited for our table. Bartender made amazing drinks and is in a league of his own. Extremely attentive. After we got to our table the waitstaff did not communicate with us. We ordered the £85 chateaubriand and a couple of appetizers. We requested a recommendation for a good wine to pair with a nice steak. The manager recommended a Spanish wine that was ~£47/bottle. The price felt reasonable. We took his advice and found the wine to be extremely chalky and dry, even after an hour. Unfortunately we purchased the bottle and ended up just leaving over half of it because it was so difficult to drink. Never done that before (it was that bad.) We did say something and asked to be comped for half, but they said we had to pay for the entire bottle because it was opened. Our steak arrived lukewarm. We ended up ordering two other glasses of wine to try to salvage the meal. I would not recommend...

Pretty place but its appeal stops there.

I got the mushroom wellington at the recommendation of the waitress and left hungry and not at all satisfied. The sauce and dish overall were extremely salty and I love salt. This was like a salt lick. I hadn't eaten anything all day and it was almost 10pm and I was starving so I ate it rather than ask something else. On top of being way too salty, it was a very small portion and the carrots were nearly raw.

When I flagged to the waitress this at the end so the chef could check his sauce and veg, she said they would have swapped it for another dish but also became super defensive and made me feel a bit backed into a corner. She then tried to upsell me on dessert aggressively after I told her after the main I was hesitant about ordering anything else she replied "well, there won't be salt in the dessert. It's a dessert!"

I just asked for the check and got out of there. Now looking for something else to fill me up and get the salt lick taste out of my mouth...

Edit: Bumped the star rating down to 1 as I emailed the restaurant to let them know about the situation so they could have better staff training and they sent back an unempathic and glib reply saying "well, you should have taken your waitresses suggestion and tried the desserts, they were not salty!"

I'm not going to take the suggestions (and pay even more for tiny portions) of a rude, aggressive and defensive waitress who spent 5 minutes ranting at me when I just quietly mentioned the salt issue and to let the chef know and to not understand that is beyond me. I felt like I was in a timeshare presentation where you just have to keep saying no while being pressured...