Franks - Wine and Pasta Bar — Restaurant in Scotland

I have given this restaurant 5 stars before but it’s such an unpredictable restaurant I came here 10 times this year and it’s like every second time I come here is amazing, and the other times they will run out of food, make the pasta differently and the service can take FOREVER because there’s only 1 chef on most of the time, I love their brown butter tagliatelle although sometimes they don’t have all the ingredients to make it and they will just serve it to you anyways, although on good days I’d give this place 5 starts although they are so inconsistent, usually I get the red merlot wine and it’s the best red wine, but usually they will hand it to me with the bottle already being opened days previously as there is oxidation and cork bits as well as clumps, you can tell they don’t have enough money to stock pile on wine. Although like I said on their good days everything will be great, I recommend booking in advance so you don’t get put on the bottom floor, although I have booked in advance and got put on the bottom floor and this was in winter time so I had to keep my fur coat on because it was so cold, I asked the waiter to shut the door and they didn’t so I just sat there in the cold, I was a regular customer now I don’t think I will go there for a good time because they aren’t reliable, it’s like an addiction because it’s such a hit or miss. They also only have limited vegetarian option, also I get the focaccia and oils for starters and they serve me stale hard baguette bread with limited oils on the side so I run out of the dipping half way though the first piece of bread, they also amped up their prices very fast I came here in February 2023, the last time I came there was July 2023, the prices went from...

75p if you want parmesan cheese on your vegetarian pasta, I genuinely couldn't believe it, you're asked when ordering if you want parmesan, we all said yes as bizarrely it's put on in the kitchen!?! and my spaghetti would only be dressed with parmesan if i paid 75p, on all the others it was included -what are they on!! The only italian restaurant in over 40 years that i've been to don't bring parmesan to the table, and why charge just the spaghetti? Starters included focaccia that had been deep fried and you could squeeze the oil out of, really disgusting, we left 4 of the 6 pieces.The prawns were left out of 2 seafood linguine's and 6 were brought to the table 5 minutes later on a side plate - the mussels were like bullets, not gently steamed and they were tasteless and inedible. My spaghetti was so overcooked it broke up when wrapping around the fork and again tasteless. To cap it all off, the waitress brought the wrong bill to the table that we had to tell her(we could have saved £20)- there was only one other table in (plus owner having a meeting next to us) I do wonder whats happened to this place as I've eaten there before and its always been OK - so when Tony Macaroni and Mozza round the corner are rammed and franks is empty -people vote with their feet - This place has it all wrong on so many levels and is an embarrassment to Italians and their great...

Terrible experience here at Franks. I wrote about all of the below to the general manager, twice, but they did not ever respond.

The service was abysmal. 25mins for any drinks to arrive. 35mins after being seated for 'focaccia' to arrive. 1hr 10mins for main meals to arrive. Customers were left alone upstairs with little to no service, drinks ran dry with nobody to offer more drinks. 30mins after finishing dinner, plates were not cleared from the table and we had not been paid any attention from staff at all. It appeared everyone upstairs were in the same boat, service was extremely slow and for long periods non-existent, there was a real sense of frustration from the neighbouring tables. Eventually we gave up and went downstairs for the bill, where we were presented with the card machine and the server asked 'please tap to select which tip'.

Food wasn't great either. They had clearly run out of 'focaccia' as we were given freezing cold ciabatta. Limoncello spritz was extremely weak, with flat Prosecco. Main meals were smothered in Parmesan in the kitchen. Main meals were warm but certainly not hot and the ragu in both dishes was lacklustre in flavour.

Candidly this was the worst dinner experience I have experienced in quite some time. I would not recommend...