Gordon Castle Walled Garden (cafe closed mon/tues) — Restaurant in Scotland

The open day was very busy as you would expect.. Pity the weather wasn't the best and road works on the bridge leading away from baxters was a nightmare.. I decided to cycle to the event from elgin (no lycra, MTb kit thank you) and this proved the best and at times the quickest way.. On arrival very polite ground staff gave me a place to chain my bike up, I presented my "flyer" and paid only half the entry fee... This is to good to be true, this is where the hospitality ended!! I went into the cafe area as the outside seating was all taken plus two woman where trying thier very best to sing!! I stood awaiting to be seated and I noticed reserved seating to my right, three tables of four plus seat all reserved.. Why on an open day when the turn over is going to be higher than usual... Strange but a few other tables where free.. I waited, I was noticed then ignored. I brought myself to the attention of one of the staff and asked should I seat myself as they where busy? No was the answer very indignantly, then an older woman came over and asked "what did I want" after looking me up and down... RUDE! I bit my tongue and politely asked for a table after a 10+minute stand, after a quick look "we haven't any tables but they are serving outside" "but I would like that table over there please" , obviously empty.. "that's a table for four, we haven't any tables for one" "yes I know I said but you never have tables for one so can I have that table there?" after a seemingly ong stand off the answer was "we haven't any tables for one" now I could have made a scene, I could have made it awkward but I wasn't going to eat here now I'd lost my appetite and patience with this woman. I took my leave went outside walked around for a bit and decided I've had enough and left with a very bad impression of the day! Now I do get it, the staff at open days are under the hammer to perform, yes I get it BUT front of house staff are in my opinion the first impression of a premises, to refuse a seat to a customer because of how they look and because they are alone is in this day and age wrong... Who knows who I was and for what reason I was there... I had money to spend on food and drink.. Thier loss. I have been there many a time and have recommended Gordon castle to many of my forces friend who visit the RAF base. Will this make me think twice.. NO but by highlighting certain staffs failings need to be addressed by the training staff and...

Had an enjoyable visit to the gardens, but felt it wasn't quite worth the £9.50 entrance fee (at least not without a few improvements). It's advertised as dog friendly, which is great, but there were no bins on-site (not even for general waste) which we found out by asking where we could find one. Seems like an oversight that could be quickly remedied but we got the impression that nothing was being done about it. They did have water dishes in the outdoor cafe area however, but we didn't visit the cafe so can't comment on the food or service of this.

The shop is small but has a nice, albeit expensive, selection of things (they had muffins priced at £3.90 each!) and there was an area by the entrance of the garden where you could pick up produce from the garden to purchase which was a nice touch, but quite a few of the items were unavailable when we visited.

What puzzled us was offering 6 apples for £2.50 but there were only two small varieties to choose from - yet walking around the garden there were hundreds of apples of numerous varieties. I understand they use them for producing drinks to sell so likely can't offer this, but it would have been a really unique idea to have had the opportunity to pick one each of a few varieties (with the guidance/supervision of one of the gardeners) and paid for them accordingly.

I could see online/on google maps that there is a lake near the garden which I thought we'd be able to walk around but there was no signage for it so left slightly disappointed. I'm not sure how long the gardens have been open for, but it felt like it was lacking something to make it a more worthwhile experience, but hopefully they continue to make improvements and take any customer feedback onboard. It could be a great asset to the area with a little...

I had been looking forward to this Mother's Day meal for a few weeks but it was really disappointing with many issues.

It was a set Mother’s Day menu and we were asked to order everything up front including pudding and after dinner coffee. Which was fine.

We ordered water which took half an hour to be bought to our table although the restaurant was only a third full and there were staff members standing around doing nothing. We’d pretty much finished our starter by the time our drinks arrived.

My soup should have come with bread or oatcakes but I got neither.

Our after dinner coffee was brought to us after we finished the starter and I had to send them away as we obviously didn't want them yet.

Then when they cleared our starter they asked if we were ready for our pudding!

Once we finally got our main my daughters garlic bread was not very nice, and her macaroni cheese was lacking in flavour.

Our mains and dessert were acceptable but overall it was a very disappointing Mother's Day meal and at a time when funds are tight it was not worth what was being charged.

I regretted booking to eat at this restaurant and wouldn't...