Topiary Coffee Shop — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

I’d like to thank the lady working in the cafe tonight (18/4/24 at around 5:30/6) who offered to hold my dog so that I could order and pay for food as I was in my own.

You wouldn’t know by looking at or talking to me, but I’m autistic. The wind had given me sensory overload and I have been in burnout, so I took my dog for a little stroll around the garden Center and saw that I was allowed to eat there with the dog in the outside covered area but not in the restaurant. I had missed the open time for getting food in the farm shop. I hadn’t eaten a meal in nearly a week as I struggle to feed myself when I’m in burnout. It would have been easy for her to acknowledge me looking at the dog sign and leave me to walk away, but she came over and offered to hold my dog for me so that I could get food. This meant the first real meal I had eaten this week and will hopefully give me the energy to get some food tomorrow too.

To some this may be a seemly small favour, but to me actually it was quite huge and will have a knock on impact to my week. I am very grateful that she saw me and offered to help. It’s above and beyond customer service and she really won’t have known how important that was for me. I hope she gets this message. Thank you to you, and I feel bad I didn’t catch her name or see her after I finished my meal. The food...

I organised an afternoon tea in this restaurant on 27 June for a group of 21 people from a church group. From beginning to end the experience exceeded my expectations. The booking process was so easy, and the managers I spoke to on the phone (Marco and Rebecca) couldn’t have been more helpful. We were given a separate room, which was great for a group event, and when we arrived we were delighted to find that it was beautifully laid out with flowers on the table and on the windowsill and there was a lovely outlook to a garden area outside. Rebecca was very welcoming and friendly when we arrived and made sure that everything was to our satisfaction. The staff helping her were all equally helpful and pleasant. The afternoon tea itself exceeded our expectations. Delicious sandwiches, scones and cakes, and lovely thoughtful touches like strawberries and blueberries dotted around the cakes. The food was exceptional value for money - more than we could eat, and the staff kindly gave us little brown paper carrier bags to take home leftovers. Having such a lovely setting and such pleasant, helpful staff (not to mention the delicious food!) really added to the atmosphere and we had a wonderful afternoon. All in all, this was an extra special experience - top marks...

Presently, it's barely worth one star. We (4 of us)were so disappointed with it - we had gone with reasonable hopes of a decent lunch, but it was not good. The waiters were patently not trained at all in table service ( in better times it's a buffet canteen style). They were too few for table service. They had difficulty taking orders as there was only one IPad for ordering. I think the kitchen had problems with table service and cooking to order. The meat in the two steak pies was almost inedible, the burger was overcooked and hard (!). The fish and chips, poor. The fish was soaked in grease, chips were cool, the mushy peas tasteless. We ordered desserts, 3 out of 4 came. 2 out of the 3 had ingredients missing. On a more positive note, COVID measures were very evident, and the bill was reduced for the missing items. I think this is a failure of management, rather than...