Edinburgh
Angels With Bagpipes

Angels With Bagpipes

343 High Street, City Of Edinburgh EH1 1PW, United Kingdom

Bars • British • Scottish • European


"Situated on the Royal Mile, Angels with Bagpipes manages not to offer the usual tourist fare. The restaurant was low lit with twinkly lights and was full of glossy, polished surfaces adorned with discreet cushions. The room was about half full, which was about expected at this time of the evening. The a la carte menu was relatively short but packed full of variations on classics. I opted for the beef tartare followed by the pollock. My dining companion chose the goats cheese followed by the Ross-shire lamb. The starters arrived relatively quickly. The tartare looked pleasing to the eye. I had spotted that it was beef rather than steak tartare, possibly indicating an inferior cut of meat. If this was the case, I certainly couldn’t tell. If tartare is on the menu I do like to give it a try. The meat had an amazing freshness to it and the egg oozed perfectly. The proportion of the quail egg to the meat was just right. The capers were not chopped up finely but somehow this added extra zing and bite to the dish. My dining companion enjoyed the goats cheese with beetroot but commented that it would be difficult to go wrong with this combination. The mains appeared not long after. My pollock looked really appetising. The extra side of thin cut chips was a good call, with a balanced crunch –to-fluff ratio and just the right amount of salt dusting. The fish itself was cooked well and the skin was perfectly crispy. The veg alongside was adequate but nothing special. However, the star of the dish were the pickled mussels. Only a scattering of them appeared on the plate but seriously, I could have eaten a whole bowlful of those on their own. My dining companion had dithered a little over ordering the lamb as she is still a little worried about meat coming a little rarer than her liking. She was advised by staff upon ordering that it would come medium rare. I would say it was closer to the rare side than medium but my friend soldiered on. She enjoyed the dish but again, the meat was not the star. High praise was offered for the accompanying lentils. We were automatically given the menu for dessert without being asked if we actually wanted any. Perhaps it was just the look on my face that said I was in the mood for a dessert (which is the course I am most likely to forgo). I went for the parfait and my dining partner chose the cheesecake. My parfait was tonka bean with caramel swirls, scattered peanuts and a caramel dipped hazelnut. Along with that was a Granny Smith apple sorbet. Both parts were excellent. The parfait was firm but creamy and the caramel complemented it. The sorbet was sharp and packed a punch. However, they did not go together. So I ate them as if I was eating two separate desserts, one after the other. My dining companion was a little underwhelmed by the cheesecake. The pear seemed lost in the honey and didn’t appear to have anything that made it stand out. She felt that ‘it did what it said’ but it didn’t wow. So, overall we had a lovely time and the food was of a great standard. There were just a few bits here and there that took some of the shine off what could have been a truly astonishing meal."

The Queens Arms - Edinburgh

The Queens Arms - Edinburgh

49 Frederick Street Edinburgh, EH2 1EP, United Kingdom

Pub • Pubs • Drinks • British


"Our favourite variety of roast dinner is a classic, the chicken; lamb would be far lower on our list, it’s a tough meat to get right and often leads to disappointment. The Queens Arms was serving up lamb on our visit, gosh, this would certainly put our taste buds to the test… We were sat in a booth with a door. It was a lock-in at our table, our first ever taste of captive consumption – we loved it! The booth separated us off from the outside world, creating an intimate and cosy dining experience. Enter the roast, with four huge Yorkshire puddings and two mounds of roasties. A medley of root veg and cabbage arrived and we were all set. I know what your thinking, where’s the gravy EdinBlogger, show me the gravy! Well, confession time, I forgot to document it, excitement was at an all time high after our 6 day wait – we wanted to get stuck in as quickly as possible. We love the idea of sharing a roast like this, it’s like eating at home and encourages a conversation around the food (plus it’s a lot easier for me to sneak an extra helping from a sharing board than from EdinBloggette’s plate when the opportune moment arises). So did the lamb pass the taste test? Yes, yes it did! It was juicy, still a little pink and didn’t require 100 chews like some of the disappointing roasts in the past. The roasties had a lovely crunch which gave way to an incredibly fluffy interior, and th"

Blackwoods Bar and Grill

Blackwoods Bar and Grill

10 Gloucester Place Edinburgh, EH3 6EF, United Kingdom

Meat • Steak • Organic • British


"We visited the restaurant for our 10th wedding anniversary dinner based upon good previous reviews on tripadvisor The staff were pleasant and helpful, but the service was slow. The standard of the food in terms of both presentation and flavour was poor. There was a limited menu available because of covid, which was understandable. However, the full normal menu was on the website when the booking was made and even though we called ahead on the day, we were not made aware of the change to a limited menu, so we were immediately disappointed on arrival. The choices available were laughably basic and boring. It was our 10th wedding anniversary after all so you will understand how we felt. For example, the starter menu was basically a vegetable soup, or smoked salmon or a slab of what looked like supermarket pate served with some mixed salad and a couple of oatcakes. Basically nothing that required any preparation or cooking whatsoever, like something you might have on a picnic perhaps. Then we ordered chateaubriand for main course which per the website should have been cooked on a josper grill and served with hand cooked chips etc. What we actually got was a cold slab of poorly cooked pan fried meat with a couple of small mushrooms, some hard carrots with dried parsley on top, half an unripe tomato and some poorly cooked cold frozen chips. They did knock some money off the bill (the chateaubriand supplement) as they could see the disappointment in our faces and were apologetic about the standard. There were excuses made relating to covid, but we are aware from friend's and our own experiences, that many other restaurants in Edinburgh are operating just fine so if Blackwoods can't meet it's own standards it should remain closed until it can."