Cocktails & Steaks — Restaurant in Scotland

I had high expectations for Cocktails and Steaks. However, as they say, first impressions last. We (my wife and I) booked for 6 o’clock on a Sunday evening. Booked online and paid a deposit of £10 per person. We were seated and given a chance to peruse the menus. For a steak venue I found the wine selection to be poor. Wines to pair with steaks; Heavier tannic wines such Barolo, Amarone, Malbec, Cab Sauv etc. No Barolo or Amarone and the Malbecs and Cab Sauvs were cheap(at cost) and didn’t rate well. Upon deciding on the Malbec, I was informed it was sold out and the only other Malbec was by the bottle. The gin my wife wanted was also sold out. Both settled on alternative drinks. We ordered gordal olives & bread to start. Approximately 7 olives arrived in a small ramekin. My wife ordered a flat iron steak and I a chateaubriand, only to be told they didn’t have any left. Bearing in mind at this point we had paid our booking deposit and had our drinks and starters. At no point when being seated were we informed they were out of stock on this item and quite an important item, given that it’s a steak restaurant. We were also not informed of the specials and noted that the table next to us weren’t informed at the start that they had sold out of the chateaubriand. Settled on a fillet. Both steaks were lovely. We finished off the meal with a shared dessert. The food that was available and served to us was lovely. I’d suggest that the wine menu needs revised, especially that the online photos show a bottle of Amarone. Selling out of alcohol, wine and gin can be bought in bulk, non perishable items. At no point did staff offer to open the bottle only Malbec as an alternative. Selling out of steak could be forgiven but when compounded with the other items unavailable it would seem the business is erring on the side of caution and not ordering enough in and passing that on to the customer in the form of willingness to risk a dissatisfied customer. Not sure I...

Arrived early because of the train stood at the door for a good 5/10 mins before we were approached by a member of staff, were taken to our table and then the came back 15 odd mins later asking for a drinks order I hadn’t even looked at the menu so asked them to come back a further 15 mins later they came back drinks ordered, drinks arrived 10 minutes after ordering and we ordered our food, had to ask about the steak on the market menu as it wasn’t explained very well on the menu anyway ordered our food all was good, after being in the premises for 1 hour we finally received or starter which we decided to share we had the haggis bonbons it was 3 very small balls of haggis so was consumed within 3 minutes as we had waited ages, waited an almost further 30 mins for our mains, when they arrived the presentation was outstanding, however the steak was so salty that about half way through I just couldn’t eat it anymore and gave up, the onion rings were great and the mac and cheese side was very dry, we got another round of drinks ordered when our main meal arrived, I was drinking french martinis, when it arrived I was told they had ran out of an ingredient so they had substituted it with something else, WITHOUT asking if that was okay, if I had known I would have picked something else, because we were having the market menu we opted to get a portion of ice cream to share to make the 2 course for each of us, the ice cream was delicious, all in all £100 later and I don’t think we will rush back, service very slow and although the food looks good I would advise you to be careful unless you want to feel like you have been drinking the sea with the saltiness...

We went tonight for food for my sister’s 30th. The guy who served us was lovely however there was around 40 minutes wait for starters then quite a while for mains. The waiter also forgot to put through our sides which is absolutely fine mistakes happen we didn’t mind however we didn’t get them until after we had finished our mains. We were under the impression these would be taken off the bill given what the waiter said and that this was a mistake however he came and offered us a round of soft drinks for the inconvenience which we refused as we had finished out dinner and were also drinking wine. We then got the bill and the sides were on it spoke to the waiter and mentioned food had been lovely but we didn’t get these until after our meal including a portion of onion rings we didn’t order. The waiter said his manager (the owner) had said he wasn’t allowed to take these off so they took off one of the dessserts instead we hadn’t even noticed this. I also had to query the bill as 2 people had the set menu and this didn’t come off the bill when I queried this was told the prices were correct we had 1 x2 course and 1x3 course. This came to £210 and I am sure we were overcharged. Given we spent over £200 I was really disappointed in this. We could have complained much more than we did given the wait times and disappointed this was not resolved to our satisfaction what is £20 on a bill of over £200 when it was a genuine mistake by a staff member. Although the food and service was great I wouldn’t return...