The Drouthy Laird — Restaurant in Scotland

EDIT: I've been contacted by the venue and was politely told that there are actually 2 places with the same name in the same building - one a pub, which I've ended up in, and one a restaurant, which has a different entrance. I've looked it up on maps and I couldn't figure out where it was until noticing a sign on the side of the pub pointing towards it. This is entirely insufficient because: The restaurant has the exact same name as the pub with 2 different entrances, which is evidently rare, confusing and unexpected. The pub entrance has "restaurant bar" written over it, and the entrance to the bar says "great food", both of which suggest that's the entrance for the restaurant. There is nothing online when booking or on Maps mentioning there are actually 2 places. The sign for the restaurant is on the left side of the pub entrance so if you are coming from the other side, there's no chance you can see it. And who even stops to read all the signage around the outside of a building, especially when it's dark and rainy? The restaurant entrance looks more like an entrance for deliveries than the entrance for the restaurant so even if we did walk past it, we might have not realised we should go through there. Solutions? A. Make the pub signage not mention food or restaurant and improve the signage to clarify that the restaurant is somewhere else, as well as noting that in the booking system. OR B. Name the restaurant or pub as something else and market them as 2 different businesses. So, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and updated the review to 3 stars, as this still resulted in an unpleasant experience and there are improvements to be made by them.

Original comment: We made a booking for Saturday evening here as TripAdvisor recommended it, pictures looked good and so did the menu. When we arrived, it was instantly obvious this is not a restaurant at all, but a very loud sports bar! There was no one to speak to without queueing to speak to a bartender and no table with a reserved sign on it at all so we just gave up and left. We ended up having to find a table on a rainy Saturday night which was a pain but we did end up at BrewDog which surprisingly felt a lot more like a restaurant and less like a pub than this place! If you're looking to have dinner, absolutely...

Had been really looking forward to trying the food here as the menu was very appealing. Unfortunately it did not live up to the promise. Service was slow. We'd been given a 2 hour window for our booking and were concerned we wouldnt have enough time to enjoy the meal when the food still hadnt been served an hour after we arrived, although the staff were attentive in checking our drinks. When it finally did arrive ( 30 mins remai ing of our booking time) i was very disappointed in the quality of the food. I had ordered the steak and ale pie with hand cut chips and seasonal veg. Firstly the hand cut chips were thinly sliced potatoes with the skins on that had not been near either a frier or an oven as they were luke warm and anaemic in colour suggesting they had been cooked.in the microwave. At least they werent hard, which is the only positive comment i can make. As for the pie, well there was.copious steak filling but it was dry as.a bone with no.hint of any gravy present. It felt like it could have been. cut from a block it was that dehydrated. Similarly a pastry circle had been.placed.on top. No gravy was offered.and there was no.option to order any as a side from the menu which may have salvaged the meal somewhat. Seasonal veg was a few slices.of carrot and a small.spoonful.of green beans neither of which are my favourite veg and always seem to be in season, perhaps because they are cheap!. I gave it my best effort but couldnt finish the meal it was so dry and feel it was significantly over priced for the quality of food that was served up. As a result we were thankful that we hadnt ordered starters or dessert and were finished well within our allocated timeslot. I can safely say my first trip to the Drouthy Laird will...

We went here last night (Wednesday) with friends who we hadn’t seen for a while. We were seated and attended to quickly and the waiting staff were friendly . We ordered our food and drinks and chatted away , catching up with each other. The food was mixed, the men both took the chicken goujons , my friend had the tagliatelle and I had the pulled pork ciabatta with sweet potato fries. I only found out today that her tagliatelle was absolutely awful but she was too polite to complain, mine was tasty enough but I did expect to have side salad on the plate of which there was none, but a small pot of coleslaw, which I didn’t really see the point of if there was no salad. We have eaten here several times before, but this time was very disappointing, and I wouldn’t hurry back...