Whighams Wine Cellars — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

We booked this restaurant because they promote themselves as a wine cellar with tasty wine recomandations. Unfortunately, that is also why I have to leave 2 stars. The wines are not worth the money.

The food, we had the salmon, the calamari and both the fish and chips, was nice. We asked for a wine to combine with the food and we were recommended a tasting of 4 white wines. These 4 white wines were not very different from each other in terms of taste. All lighter, fresh wines with little explanation from a cart. The server didn’t say anything about them.

a little disappointed, we ordered a full, buttery and round wine to go with the fish and chips. The woman said she knew something, without saying which wine or grape it might be. She did ask how big of a glass we wanted, which is a very strange question when ordering a wine glass.

We ordered the large one and a little later the woman came back with two slightly full glasses. No wine bottle, no explanation, no question whether the wine is good, nothing you expect at a "wine cellar". The wine was also not full, buttery or round.

With that, the food arrived in no time, which gives you the feeling of being in a food shack like McDonalds. Within an hour we where outside.

How this place can promote itself as a wine restaurant is crazy. It is not at all worth the money, we could have just eaten...

A lovely hidden gem in terms of atmosphere and location, really beautiful place and a gorg small outside seating area. Half of our meals let us down unfortunately, my linguine was a bit tasteless and the curry could have been better. The rest was fine. Mussels and fries were great! A shame about the wine - all the staff’s suggestions were really bad for the taste and quality, especially compared to the price - house wine £26 per bottle and it wasn’t better than a £5 bottle at Lidl - which we were very surprised about being a wine bar but I’m sure if you went with your own preference it would be better. The service was inattentive - we had very long periods of waiting for attention for drinks and the bill and actually had to just go to the bar each time to get service which was fine for us to do but not good dining experience at all - we all manage hospitality and know this shouldn’t be the case. Maybe better organisation in terms of sections? On the other hand the staff were all lovely when we did eventually get service. Thank you...

For New Year’s Eve 2023, we were a party of seven who had traveled quite some distance to be together: two from Sweden, two from Switzerland, one from Paraguay, and ourselves from the U.S. We were all able to meet in Edinburgh for just 36 hours, and our experience with Whighams made our visit an absolute delight.

The restaurant offered a five-course meal with wine pairings. Every dish was delicious, and we enjoyed the wine pairings very much. We were especially appreciative of the fact that they did not have a second seating. It was an act of generosity to have one seating, at a leisurely pace, with the option to stay until midnight (which we very nearly did).

We truly appreciated the warm and friendly service, the cozy atmosphere, the amazing food, and the gift of time to ring in the new year with dear friends from far away. Highly...