Rogue Bros The Boat House — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

3.5 stars, if I could, and I'd definitely give them another try. I'd love to see them step up their game. They do a lot of things right. But overall the experience was a bit mixed. And in this range, I don't think it should. They have trouble putting out the lunch in one go as all the tables seem to roll and sit down at once, unfortunately. We had a 50+ minute wait for our main course. To be fair, one in our group ordered a soup came out in 5 minutes, but the wait was long and lonely after that. It would have been nice if the waiter stopped by just to let us know we weren't completely forgotten. In the end we were just happy to be there together with friends, but it could be a problem for some. I had the smoked haddock that was served luke warm to cold, although the plate was burning hot. Judging from the crustiness on top of the sauce, I'm guessing it was sitting under the heat lamp for a bit while the other two dishes were being prepped, sole and a second soup. Too bad because the recipe of cheddar cheese sauce over smoked haddock on a bed of mashed with a poached egg, really was quite good, although very rich and heavy. The comment below about oily food is true. Most, if not all, the dishes are heavy with butter, cream or oil and there's really nothing for vegan or vegetarians. In that sense, I think the menu is somewhat dated, early 00's. Also, they're not quite capable of accommodating food sensitivities. One of our group could not have alcohol in their food, a pretty common thing, which I sensed frustrated the waiter and he was unable to guide us to an alternative selection. That member of our group just ended up having soup as an entree, unfortunately. Another table I overheard was trying to sidestep cheese and cream with similar results. That said, the menu had some interesting choices. The lamb chops sounded and looked wonderful, and one of our party had the lemon butter sole. It was excellent. The desserts also looked scrumptious. Yes, the decor did have a "lounge" feel, perhaps a business class hotel in Dubai comes to mind, but the view from the big glass windows to the bridge made up for it. My sense was the staff was more accustomed to dealing with local guests as opposed to international guests, and they were a bit stressed dealing with the wave of guests, but on the way out they were quite friendly. The food scene has changed a lot in Scotland the past 7-8 years and I'd love to see...

We were at this restaurant back in October 2023, where we and two family members from the USA had a very lovely evening with good food, sorry I mean ( GREAT FOOD), and a lovely atmosphere, so we were really desperate to come back to The Boat House for the fine dining experience. Yesterday evening we had the opportunity to come back again, but wow, this experience was the opposite end of the spectrum from our first visit. The first thing that caught my eye were dirty tables, and an atmosphere which didn’t feel most inviting , but hey hi, we hoped the dining experience was still the same. We did have a lovely starter of warm focaccia style bread with a nice honey butter and some olives, I did compliment the waitress telling her it was delicious.For a main I opted for the Sunday roast, which sounded appealing coming from the recommendation from the young waitress. When it arrived it was a plateful, which didn’t faze me as I like my food and I was hungry, but unfortunately the huge Yorkshire pudding was cold and burnt a little around the edges, but the beef was literally as tough as the sole of a shoe, even my knife could barely cut it. I’m not one to complain, but I had to as I wanted to enjoy a nice meal, and not get into a fight cutting meat!! The young staff apologised and said they would get me another Sunday roast. I had no idea how on earth they were going to make the beef more tender in a couple of minutes before returning with another plate of food. Well it was between 5-10 minutes when they came back with my replacement food. Again a large well done Yorkie Pud, burnt a little, but this was covering the beef which was absolutely raw meat with a horrible fatty edge!!!! I mean should the chef not control this before it’s taken out to the customer?! Obviously I sent it back, I wouldn’t relish a bout of food poisoning at any time. The staff offered me a replacement meal but I was feeling so queasy I declined and went without a meal. To top off the evening, my wife popped into the ladies on the way out, and was almost wiped out by a member of staff, possibly cook, who was absolutely thundering down the stairs in a mad rush, and was inches from colliding with her as she left the bathroom. All in all, a complete disaster of an evening which we had held so much hope for, a truly...

My friend and I were looking for somewhere we hadn't been before with an interesting menu and decided on The Boat House.

At first glance, the menu looked very good, with all the things we both loved, so we had high hopes. These hopes were dashed when our starter of oysters came out. Both plates of 6 oysters had some very small and not very appealing oysters. We both had to leave a couple to be safe, which was a real shame. On top of this, we both found multiple pieces of shell while eating them. The mignonette was OK, but the shallots and beetroot were very chunkily cut without much care or precision. We also didn't get lemon with our oysters and had to signal the waitress to ask for some. As we were paying £15 each for the privilege of eating these oysters, we felt a little hard done by.

For mains, I had the pork belly, which I had been looking forward to since reading the menu. Sadly, I was disappointed again. Despite being presented very well, beauty was only skin deep here. The pork belly was tough and would have benefited from a few more hours low and slow to render out that fat. The pulled pork bon bon and the mac n cheese croquette were rather underseasoned, and the "pea puree" seemed to just be blitzed up mushy peas. The carrots seemed to dominate the plate, and I felt a little let down with the amount of pork belly on offer.

My friend had a scallop dish that was on the specials menu and was also disappointed. Underseasoned and unfortunately overcooked was the verdict, and also a rather minimal portion for the price.

For dessert, we opted for the sticky toffee pudding and were pleasantly surprised there. It was the "highlight" of the meal, if we were to find one.

I doubt we would return, which was a real shame. However, the views were beautiful, and the restaurant was lovely.

They may just need a shake-up in...