Dunnichen Stone — Restaurant in Scotland

Picture the scene. It's Sunday, 1854, my girlfriend and I arrive on the scene, looking funky fresh and ready to eat! We enter the building to be confronted by a sign stating "please wait here to be seated. Thank you." As I look around, I make eye contact with several members of staff who appear to be hitting their stress threshold. A quick glance around - it seems quiet... too quiet... "what seems to be the stress?" I ask myself, internally. 5 minutes later - a literal 5 minutes - we get asked if we have a reservation. Obviously, as this is a last minute thing on a Sunday, we did not. She then points us in the direction of the most secluded seats in the place. So, without escort, we arrive to our seats. They had a very, out of sight, out of mind aura about them. The kind of seats you would expect a movie mafia don to sit at, while he counts his protection money. As we sat down, we checked the time - 1900. "Sweet" we thought, as we waited eagerly for our drinks to be taken. 5 seconds later, another couple enter and get seen to immediately. As soon as they are seated, behind us, might I add, the waitress pops the question: "would you like anything to drink?" My girlfriend and I sit there, bewildered: "what...? Are we not worthy of drinks? Why are they doing this?" We ponder. We sit for a further 10 minutes until we got offered the drinks, but it wasn't just the drinks - she asked us if we were ready to order... Ready to order... READY TO ORDER!? We hadn't even had our drinks offered to us, let alone our opportunity to stare intently at the menus to then decided that we would have the same thing we have everywhere else! Luckily, we had decided. We placed our order, along with the drinks, and waited. As we waited for our drinks - a 10 minute wait - I started writing this review, and reading it as I went along to my girlfriend. I felt a slight jab to my shin, she motions over to the right and we notice that the waitress is eavesdropping, so, quickly, and rather awkwardly, I make it seem like I am reading a text from one of my friends: "... 'so, I told her that that was it, I was leaving her' so, yeah, dave's leaving her..." she leaves possibly amazed by my cunning and extreme talent in the art of deception, and not a second later, boom. Out comes our drinks. We sit and enjoy them, trying to make them last as long as we possibly can, because we had a feeling, we were going to be waiting a while, but by the time our food had arrived, my drink was finished, and all that was left, was the water in place of the ice. To be honest, the food wasn't that bad. The choice of dispenser that they had chosen for the vinegar was... questionable... it was like one of them things that your granny would keep in a cabinet, you know what I'm on about? Them little tea set things that you were never allowed to play with because they were "special"? Well, that's what it looked like. A little teapot. Very nice looking, but highly impractical. If my chips could speak, they would have been screaming for their lives and the news would probably have dubbed it a "devastating tsunami". The burger tasted pretty good. As good as you'd expect a burger to taste - yeah, I order the burger, by the way, probably should've mentioned that - although, these guys must be getting their wages docked for every piece of salad they put on it, let's just say that if someone from a third world country was given the same amount of salad, they would be...

Unfortunately on this occasion the experience was disappointing. As a family we have ate at the restaurant several times and have always had a pleasant experience and been treated very well by all staff. This was my birthday and I booked online for 6 people. I myself have a severe lemon allergy and carry an Epipen due to anaphylaxis. I informed the young waitress about my allergy and requested that no fruit especially lemon or lime to be added to anyone's drinks especially mine. However despite this my drink had a slice of lemon in it, and all other family members also had lemon in their drinks. This was quickly corrected and we were provided with new drinks without any fruit.

Our meal was delayed and took longer than expected. The manager apologised for this. He offered a discount due to any inconvenience.

When we got the food again there was lemon on the fish despite advising and gently reminding the young female waitress about my allergy.

Based on past experience we would return as this is a very well established restaurant with good staff, and the young female has served us before without any issue. She did appear somewhat pre-occupied on this visit and this has possibly impacted on her standard of performance. I did find her lack of communication disappointing and she avoiding any interactions with us when we noted the lemon, and fed this back to her. The managers took responsibility for our table.

My mum has advanced cancer and her level of distress and tolerance is very short. Due to the longer wait for our meal she presented as agitated and was not accepting of the managers support. I apologies for this as both managers were helpful and understanding.

Food - unfortunately the standard of cooked food and presentation was a lot poorer on our visit. We informed the managers about the chips as they had black specs all over them looking like pepper we were told it was due to the coating, it looked like the oil in the fryer needed changed. This was off putting.

I hope this detailed feedback has been helpful.

I do hope to return to the restaurant with the aim to have a more positive customer experience. However, if the same situation occurred then this would be...

We arrived & stated we had a table booked. Server don’t ask our name for the booking just sat us down. Ordered food quite quickly and it arrived quickly too. Starters first then mains.

There was approx 9 people there including us 2 so not busy at all. Only one person serving and cleaning tables & the same person manning the bar etc. there was a manager there who seemed to just float about.

For it being very quiet we were shocked when a woman came in at 8pm looking for a table and was told the kitchen closes at 7.45pm. Surely in todays climate any revenue is better than none?

When my partners main course came out it was missing the double up fries he asked for, as soon as we let the server know she got them for him.

Overall service was very slow which was strange given how quiet it was.

The server dropped a green cleaning cloth on the floor next to our table. Multiple times she stood over it and walked by it instead of picking it up.

We ordered deserts which didn’t take long to come. I didn’t finish my chocolate sponge and ice cream because the ice cream had a “off” smell.

We paid and left.

This is our 3rd time here, would we come back? No probably not. Service very slow after the meals came out. Refusing a woman a table seemed odd also. Which restaurant shuts the kitchen at 7.45pm on a Friday night. The cloth lying on the floor for over half an hour and still being there when we left also was strange. Why step over it? Just pick it up.

The quality of the food was mediocre. I had the scampi and chips, presentation was poor however tasted ok.

My partner had the cowboy burger and as soon as it came it looked very poor. Presentation poor and the burgers looked like cheap burgers from farmfoods. He ate it because we were hungry and had travelled from Aberdeen for this meal however he said it...