The Castle Tavern — Restaurant in Crown and City Centre

Welcome to Fawlty Tavern. I heard that Sunday roast was more of a thing in England, and that in Scotland they generally just eat haggis on Sunday afternoons - so it must be then, that the Sunday roast we were subjected to at this well-located Inverness establishment was the most staunch statement of Scottish independence ever made. Perhaps Nicola Sturgeon herself was the mystery hand sliding those frightful plates out from the hole in the wall behind the bar. The ice-cold plate of food seemed to have been resting atop the Old Man of Storr before being served, and the flavourless gravy had turned gelatinous. The beans and cauliflower were clearly freshly hand-picked from the supermarket microwavable packet and perhaps towards the end of that packet, as my cauliflower was limited to small bits of albino-broccoli debris. The beef was tough and the Yorkshire pudding stale - how, I don't know, was it leftover from Saturday's Sunday roast? My cousin, who joined us on this fateful afternoon, runs a cattle property in rural Queensland and had heard good things about Scottish beef. Well, she had never been more patriotic Australian when this plate of food paraded itself before her like Danny DeVito lap-dancing in a lacey jockstrap. When I approached the bar to order some pints, the bar was already loaded with used glasses, and some room was generously made for mine. I had a sip from my pint and placed it back down again, only to be confused by which of the half-drunk pints there was mine. There were some cask ales, to this pub's credit, but the stout I wanted was out, just my luck. We sat outside in the bitter cold of early evening, with a turned-off heater hanging teasingly above us. On the television, which was silently hung conspicuously in the corner of the outdoor area, was not a football match or sexy early-2000s music videos but just the BBC evening news. So, as I courageously tucked into my 'Leave UK' themed Sunday roast, I occasionally glanced up to see images of Middle Eastern earthquakes, African military coups and crying children without any context. My brother, who lives in London, is usually on team 'Remain' with respect to Scotland's membership with the UK, however on this occasion he decided to Leave the pub and get a Subway footlong for dinner instead. On the plus, from the beer garden you do have a view of the river and the castle - however, on this occasion the castle was covered in scaffolding, which is no fault of the pub, but the view couldn't save it this time. Also to the pub's credit, the chicken sandwiches being served to other people looked OK, much to...

This pub couldn't look any better from the street than it does. The iron railings and gate surrounded by flowers make it an absolute picture, as is the garden seating area with views of the very nearby castle to round of the ambience nicely. Inside, it's a traditional looking pub and was pleasant enough. With a long trip ahead we had alcohol free beer - they brought us Boston Brewery's bottled ale, which was new to us and very pleasant. Lunch itself was pretty nice but here's where the minor issues lost a star or two. One waiter, young chap, based himself at our end of the bar and was utterly restless, pacing up and down without going near anyone to check if they needed his help so was a minor distraction of no importance but I just didn't get what he was doing at all. Our order didn't get printed downstairs, we were told when we'd been waiting ages and nothing had arrived. OK, not sure what went wrong to mean it wasn't printed but mistakes happen, that's OK. It came reasonably soon after that. However, the food, whilst itself hot, came on icy cold plates so we had to eat at a hell of a rate to have it whilst it was stil hot. With all the time we were waiting and even if the kitchen knew nothing of our order for most of that time, can't they warm the plates a little? I mean they weren't room temperature, they were ice cold, like they'd come out of the fridge. We did get a little off the bill, without having to ask, because of the delay though, so the landlord was trying and the food was pretty tasty, with decent portions. Not a big place but if you go up to see the castle - which was hiding behind boards while they were doing some work - or to see the view down the river - well worth it, then you may want to stop here for lunch. I doub't you'll have the delay we did but you might want to ask them to warm the plates or be in for a...

My partner and I arrived promptly for a 6pm reservation 02June2025, and we were served initially by “Keiran” and later by “Zoe” (according to the receipt). We had a bottle of Don Segundo Merlot, the Goat’s cheese bon bon appetizer, the pork loin, roast salmon, and we shared a sticky toffee. The food was nicely prepared, well-presented, and very tasty, but the servers acted like undertrained substitutes. We knew ahead of time that we had the table for no more than an hour and forty minutes. My last name was displayed at the table when we arrived, but the next party assigned to our table (and their name was also displayed) arrived more than a half hour early. Rather than sending them back downstairs to wait in the bar, the servers allowed them to stand about six feet away from our table while we finished eating. Prior to 7:30pm, Zoe appeared anxious that we weren’t finished. My partner asked Zoe jokingly if she was kicking us out. Zoe smiled and said yes. There are lots of nice places to eat in Inverness with better service; you’re probably better off going to...