The Advocate — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Honestly, put a real spanner in our trip! Brought friends all the way from the States to show them the beauty of Edinburgh and they fancied some good old fashioned pub grub for their dinner. First hiccup, we ordered drinks for our table of 5 and only 2 of them showed up. There were other staff on the table next to us who had finished their shift and were drinking, which they have every right to. However, the 2 bar staff working at the time were constantly standing over their shoulders and conversing. They served their table 2 rounds of drinks before we got our final round of drinks (had to ask ourselves at the bar after approx 20 mins). Then we get to the good. Aside from us there were only 2 other tables with people in the bar. 3 meals out of 5 turned up, and after 5 minutes of sitting and waiting to see an employee we had to request cutlery for the meals which had already been sat going cold. No napkins provided with cutlery. Asked twice for napkins and had to venture to the bathroom ourselves to get tissue as the bar staff were too distracted by their fellow employees drinking on the table next to us. My friend and I then had to follow up on our meals which hadn’t arrived still after our other guests had finished eating. The staff member said they’d ask the kitchen and then proceeded a minute later to bring our meals to us, which had quite evidently been sat there since the first meals were brought out. Food was as cold as ice, completely inedible. Swiftly asked for our bill after this and proceeded to air our concerns about the visit. No apology offered, no discount applied to our order. All in all, probably the worst service I’ve experienced and would definitely not recommend this establishment to my...

Worst meal experience in Scotland!

Where to start? We ordered mulled wines. They turned up cold. We took a few sips to see if we could persevere, during which we realised the drink was very watered down, and decided no, they’re disgusting. When we mentioned the drinks were cold to the waitress, she didn’t seem surprised and said “Oh, someone must have unplugged the machine to charge their phone”. Surely she would have noticed they were cold when she made them?! She offered to replace our drinks. I got a cider, which also tasted watered down. We should have known then to leave.

When it came to order food, several items weren’t available off the menu: steak and shrimp.

Three of us ordered pies. Shortly after they turned up, we received our replacement drinks, only to have a few of them dropped. Glasses broke, drink spilled onto our table, onto the next table and into my meal. The server apologised and said they’d replace the meal.

The replacement meal never came.

The rest of our group suffered through their meals, picking at cold chicken, hard, undercooked peas, undercooked “pie” pastry with a grand total of 5 pieces of meat and runny gravy. Once everyone had finished their meals, the server came over to ask if I still wanted my meal. I said only if it had been started. 10 minutes later, still no meal (or server) in sight, so we decided to leave. In the meantime, tables all around me got their meals ahead of me.

In the end, I was happy my meal never turned up so I didn’t have to eat the subpar meal my dining companions had to. Instead, we went up the road to have our second meal at Luckenbooths, which was amazing.

Avoid The Advocate unless you want to be...

This was the absolute worst experience I have ever had at a restaurant. Please avoid this establishment. The servers who were working might as well not have been there at all. We walked in looking for dinner and we’re immediately sat next to a very loud, clearly intoxicated table when there were other open tables next to other patrons who were also only there for a pint and dinner. The 2 servers were either not well trained, or completely careless. We ordered our drinks and dinner as soon as a server finally came over. We got 2 of 5 drinks ordered and waited around 20 minutes before we had to go up to the bar and ask for them and proceeded to wait another 10 minutes for them. 3 of 5 dinners came out together (2 of us ordered the regular fish and chips and were given the more expensive big fish and chips). We sat and waited another 20 minutes before having to ask yet again where the meals were. They came out immediately after we asked and the food was ice cold. The 2 who waited didn’t even eat because of how cold and gross it was. The server’s response to our constant questions was “oh, I’m sorry, I forgot”. We also asked for napkins and waited so long one of us just went downstairs to get tissue from the toilets. Completely ridiculous. They were clearly more interested in continuing to serve the OBVIOUSLY drunk table next to us who were their friends and were given round after round before we even got all of our drinks. Seems completely unacceptable for a Wednesday afternoon when it was seemingly slow. I would never recommend The...