The Swan Inn — Restaurant in Scotland

This is a difficult review to write because the staff are very nice and I like the Inn's appearance and atmosphere, but unfortunately my last experience did not go very well and it was down to the food.

As always, the staff were attentive and polite and the food came out promptly, although it is rather expensive especially considering the quality. Perhaps we caught the chef on a bad day, but then that is not great for the person having to eat and when it comes to dining out you really should be able to expect consistency.

I ordered the chilli beef nachos and it came as a decent portion, although lacking in cheese. There was copious beef but it tasted strange, not bad just strange. I felt like the mince had been cooked quickly from frozen and not defrosted properly first. Being mince and tasting strange was very off-putting as you start to worry about the safety of the meat.

There was also a lack of cheese and in general the whole dish just didn’t feel very fresh. I noticed that a lot of the nacho chips were burnt at the sides which seemed strange as it should only be the mince which is cooked and then added to the dish. This would perhaps imply that the dish had been pre-prepared and reheated.

I ordered macaroni cheese and chips for my son and once again there was a lack of cheese with the macaroni. The sauce was thin and watery with very little taste other than flour or something similar. The chips were not fully cooked and hard in the middle to the point where they couldn’t even be even comfortably.

However, not all was bad. My wife ordered the roast beef which she said was very nice and I also tried some and enjoyed it. The beef was cooked just right.

So a little bit of a mixed bag really but when it comes to food I guess you have to be quite unforgiving especially considering the prices such as almost ten pounds for nachos.

The food arrived very quickly and as much as I dislike waiting too long for food I would rather have a longer wait and the food be of a higher standard.

I hope this review helps with addressing any areas of improvement and as said the establishment and staff are lovely. Unfortunately, as our main purpose of visiting was for the food then I have to review it accordingly...

Giving it 2 stars for the service but the food was awful. Just about every item on the 2 course fixed has a supplement charge even your bog standard bub grub, fish n chips/steak pie etc, which if the food was ok it would be fine: pate ok nice portion size, scallops n haggis fritter with cauliflower puree! 1 scallop cooked ok 2 others overcooked, prawn/tempura king prawn spicy prawn sauce! Only nice thing was the 1 king prawn tempura, sauce far too spicy n I struggled to find the prawns they were so small, bread was that hard I couldnt bite through it , passed to the person with the scallops to soak up their gravy; mains herb crusted lamb good portion size very nice but did not ask how it was to be cooked but all in all tasty, fish n chips all batter very little fish, steak n ale pie wow could not even eat it had to send it back it was so salty, 1 carrot n greenbeans cooked in garlic with steak n ale pie! Fries ok, waitress advised she tried the large pot of stew after my complaint said the cook from the day before had made a mistake and they were now trying to rectify the stew offered me something else off the nenu as I only ate the carrot n some of the fries I politely declined tbh I should have said earlier of our issues to the server but being typical polite scottish you don't complain, the steak n ale pie crossed a bridge even I couldn't come back from! To be advised not to worry we have removed the pie from the bill! Seriously! No free soda n lime or even lattes on the house, gave 2 stars for service as this was ok hence why we left a £20 tip for a £72 food bill, will...

So I'm a bit sad to be placing this review of tonight's experience. Normally I love the atmosphere of the Swan but tonight something just wasn't quite right. One of our party was held up at work and was going to arrive 20mins late. We knew when we had to leave our table and this wasn't a problem. We decided we would like some starters to nibble on whilst we awaited the sixth member of our party. We did not want to order our main courses until they arrived. Twice we were told this was a problem. We had to order starters and mains at the same time. I am still struggling to understand the issue here. We wanted starters for 5 and would order mains for six within 10minutes. The waiter finally obliged but we were made to feel like he was doing us a favour. The vegetables with the steak pie were so hard they were inedible and the steak fritte was OK. Fish and chips very nice. Sadly not the double birthday...