The Royal Dick Pub — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Edit - April 2016:

The silly menu is gone, and the Royal Dick is back on form. Can't delete so will ameliorate.

This is the harshest review I've ever written - I don't enjoy being critical of places that I like, so can only hope that it has a positive effect and prevents the business being further damaged by what I can only describe as an inexplicable management decision.

First, the positive - the Royal Dick Bar is still one of the best places in the city to go for a drink. A unique venue with a great atmosphere, good selection of ales and spirits with an emphasis on local products and amicable staff. None of these things have changed, and if you're looking for an evening pint please proceed and ignore the rest of this jeremiad.

Now to the whinging. In brief, a new menu was introduced at the end of November, and it is a disaster. I struggle to imagine this piece of effete gastro-nonsense working even at Martin Wishart or the Kitchin - at best, it betrays an absolute misreading of the customer base - at worst, it is self-indulgent pretentiousness. Please rethink drastically before it is too late. Go back to what you know works - good quality food cooked well at a reasonable price - to echo the comments of other users here I fear that this will ruin a business that deserves to do so much better.

Further note - I have a suspicion that whoever is the author of these changes may brush off a lot of these comments (if they read them at all) on the assumption that diners might not be familiar with the kind of cuisine they now seem to be aiming for, so I'll mention here that I am a restaurant reviewer. In fact, I reviewed the Royal Dick for the 2015 Eating and Drinking Guide and awarded it a Hitlist nomination off the back of my experience of dining there in February. Whether that makes my opinion any more valid is questionable, but I can at least say with a measure of confidence that this change is much to the detriment of Put simply, people aren't going to come to Summerhall and pay upwards of £35 for a tasting menu, particularly one that seems to have been tailor-made to alienate customers. The steak on the previous menu was £10.50 - asking diners to now cough up over £30 for not even a whole steak ain't gonna fly, and £9 for a small amount of porridge? There was some excresence of an experiment involving a salted pineapple, but unfortunately their menu isn't online so I can't check the details. I had a brief flash of hope that the menu might in fact be a piece of performance art, or part of Summerhall's renowned avant-garde theatre programming, but alas, no.

Please, if you're reading this, fix it - before...

The Royal Dick bar is not the easiest place to find. Its on the SE corner of the Meadows - head through the main entrance to the Summerhall (Arts hub) and you will feel like you are back at school and have an urge to run in the corridors! Cross the hall, head out to the yard and right in front of you is the Royal Dick Bar.

The bar, with illustrated vet cards laid out beneath glass, crowned by mad scientist distillation equipment and old books all around you. Off in the cubbyhole rooms are a (disinfected) operating table, animal bone wall art and enormous model ship. The whole feels like a house party thrown by a mad professor. They have a great on site brewery Barneys Beer so trying a beer or two is a must.

There is both food and drink on offer here. The menu offers either full sized dinners or small tapas style bites. The bread and dips, crab, sweet potato and chilli fritters or paprika-spiked octopus and potato, even or padron peppers are a perfect snack while enjoying a drink. Though in ambience it's more bar than bistro, the menu and food presentation are distinctly restaurant-ified: home-cured organic salmon gravlax, bouncy fresh Scrabster cod with bacon and mussel chowder or shreddable braised blade of beef with barley risotto. The feather steak with Café de PAri Butter and chips is an absolute treat and really reasonable too. More bar-style is the wide ranging and inventive list of sharing platters, offering everything from bread and dips There is a decent, if not extensive, wine list and a really good traditional style cocktail menu.

Ive heard that on the last Thursday of the month they offer brewery tours and tastings for those who want to try more of the local tipple.

This bar is definitely worth the...

A very welcome addition to Newington/Southside drinking and eating.

Tucked away in its own building inside the courtyard of the huge Summerhall arts complex, it really does feel like a hidden gem. A little bit exclusive to those in the know...

Decor plays on its former Veterinary College use - medical equipment, x-rays, skulls in cabinets etc. Even a stainless steel operating table with foot controls to raise it up to standing height if required! Let your beer come to you.

There are picnic tables and covered areas in the courtyard too, giving the place a festival feel all year round - a particularly good spot after a sunny day on the Meadows.

Not the cheapest bar in the area, but they gain points for the most local sourcing of beer and gin - both Barney's Beer and Pickerings Gin share part of the building (or outbuildings), merely metres away.

There are two parts of the food menu, a set menu aiming for a more haute cuisine, but reasonably priced (£9.50 for 2 course, 3 for £13.50 at time of writing) set menu - small portions, but well priced for the extravagance of the options. If you're definitely hungry, i'd suggest the bar meals option.

There is room for improvement - staff aren't always quite with it, and have verged on rude occasionally... service of food wasn't quite up to their ambitions either, but I would not discourage anyone from...