The Bothy St Andrews — Restaurant in Great Britain

A bizarrely bad experience. The restaurant is cute and friendly enough, and they managed to fit us in without a reservation, albeit with a half hour wait. And the food was actually okay, but 70% of it wasn’t what we ordered. And 100% of it was cold. The loin of wild deer with fondant potato and creamed neeps sounded delicious. A shame then that it was actually served with crushed potatoes and carrots, without any acknowledgement or apology from the staff. Disappointing, but perhaps not the end of the world. That came when the charred tenderstem broccoli side arrived and turned out to be green beans! Which weren’t even on the menu. Again, not a word from the staff until we pointed out the mistake. But by now we were too hungry to quibble, as we’d been waiting quite some time (judging by the lukewarm state of the food, far longer than was necessary). Oh, and the ‘wilted greens’ that were to come with the chicken looked and tasted suspiciously like chargrilled white cabbage, but whatever. And so to the final deception: the wine. The fairly unpleasant Malbec we were served was simply not what was advertised on the menu, which judging by the glass we’d had while waiting at the bar would have actually been quite nice. Once more no mention of this switch from the staff until we highlighted the discrepancy with what appeared on the bill. Apparently it was just tonight’s substitution. But of course. And at exactly the same price, what are the chances! All in all, a very odd game of ingredient roulette, more akin to a supermarket delivery that swaps choc ices for chocolate ice cream, but without the handy email notification. I appreciate that we arrived towards the end of the evening and the kitchen had maybe run out of some things, but please just have the courtesy to say something and maybe give us the opportunity to order something else. Sorry, would...

My wife and I arrived in St Andrews on Sunday to meet and have lunch with our elder daughter and one of our eight grandchildren. Choice of restaurant for the day was the usually consistently good and central "Doll's House" which I have used and reviewed before. All in all, our time there was certainly worthy of yet another few lines on their merits or otherwise ... So here goes ... It was a nice fairly close day and the outside-seating looked tempting. We were pre-booked for one-o'-clock and we took the trouble of announcing ourselves to a staff 😃 member and having a pre-lunch drink of sparkling water. When we did all sit inside and order up, we were promptly served bread, butter and table water by our charming but less than well-versed waitress, menu-wise, that is, Laura. Anyway ... all of that a trifle, regarding choices, specials, offers, etc. It's fair to say the place was busy and there appeared to be no adult in charge of organising the girls and boys working there which led us to a long wait for our mains to arrive ... a full hour nibbling at the meagre 🍞 bread samples. When came the main entrées, they were each first rate. My wife's Fish Hot Pot, daughter's Sea Bass Grill, my own Burger Haggis & Chips and even the child's Fish & Skinny Fries were all of a quality one would expect to receive in this beautiful restaurant in Central St Andys. Lovely and lively, food: superb, youngish staff 😃 trying their best, waiting time? ... well, it's a good job we weren't hanging by the neck or even 🐈 catching a bus ... But we...

We visited on a Sunday night, cosy restaurant, busy, with a good atmosphere!

My first comment is a personal preference; I don't dislike dogs, but I don't like dogs in restaurants, there was a terrier two tables down, it didn't bark often but it was disturbing when it did, at least it was on the floor. As we were leaving, another dog came in and was sat at a booth, not on the floor, but sitting up on the seat.

The barman brought over our bottle of red. Comically, he didn't know how to use the corkscrew, he made hard word of it but got the cork out in the end without any bits of cork in the wine. The wine was excellent!

My wife sent the haggis starter back because it was stone cold, a new one arrived shortly after, she described it as delicious! Minor point, when the replacement was delivered the waitress said she would check if it was OK, she didn't.

I had the Cullen Skink, it was excellent.

I ordered the lamb roast but was sent the wrong dish, it was fixed quickly and tasted great.

My wife's roast beef was delivered without a Yorkshire pudding. It was quickly sorted.

Finally, and most damning comment concerns the roast beef, it was tough and almost impossible to cut and really, really chewy. On the plus side the veg was delicious.

All of our issues were resolved promptly, but overall, we didn't really enjoy our experience and probably...