A Room in the West End

Authentic, quaint Scottish bistro restaurant with pleasant atmosphere and wonderfully friendly and helpful staff. Food is excellent. We’re visiting Edinburg for the weekend, and we enjoyed our first visit so much to A Room in the West End that we’re going back again tomorrow.

I’ve eaten here a number of times in the past (including one Xmas dinner) and can safely say I’ve had no complaints about the service or food. Likewise the upstairs bar does the job, with a good range of most types of alcohol. What surprised myself and my companions last weekend though was to see Innis & Gunn available on draught. Surprise number two came when we found out it was £6.50 a pint! Needless to say no pints were bought. The price is no doubt set against what the supplier charges the bar but this is beer made in Scotland, not Leffe which is the same strength but at least imported. Given that you can get the bottled versions for not much more than a quid in Morrison’s I think I’ll be sticking to that option.

This is a great little restaurant my favourite for BYOB. A really good Scottish menu, excellent staff. Highly recommend.

Really good find. Delicious fresh fish and meat dishes from a daily changing menu. Attentive, smiley and friendly staff, good atmosphere and a lush, cosy cellar setting. Hi-​life card friendly. Check out my food pics :0)

I brought two irish friends here for dinner for a Scottish experience and they certainly got one! The restaurant is under Teuchters bar and you can get drinks from there to have with your meal. The bar has a very extensive drinks menu so we tried some different ales and whiskeys.
The food was delicious, I had a really nice chowder to start and then pollock wrapped in parma ham, it was great. The winner at the table was the chorizo and pidgeon salad, very tasty.
The desserts were good, not amazing, my friends were unsure what was in their crème brûlée but it turned out to be cranachan, an odd combination! The table was split 50:50 on whether it was good or not so the verdict is still out!
Overall we had a fantastic meal. Oh yea it is BYOB too which is always good ;)

I want to give this place more than just three stars because I actually had an incredibly lovely evening here last night. However, the loveliness of my evening was due almost entirely to the company I was with, as well as the friendliness of the wait staff.
The food was what really fell short here… and the chairs, the incredibly uncomfortable chairs.
It was by no means bad, but it just didn’t WORK very well.
For starters I had– pumpkin gnocchi with shredded ham hock, slow roasted cherry tomatoes & bocconcini. It was nice, and definitely my favorite dish of the evening. The texture of the gnocchi was a bit unusual but ultimately the flavors of the dish went together nicely.
Also, considering the size of the dish, it was a bargain at £5.95. However, as it was a starter, I didn’t want it to be that large. It filled me up to the point I where I didn’t need anything else to eat, and I hadn’t even finished it!
My friend had the smoked halibut, baby spinach & goats cheese roulade with radish & watercress salad, roast yellow pepper & Arran mustard vinaigrette. She asked if the yellow pepper could be left off, and they kindly replaced it with a reduced balsalmic (though, to be honest, I never noticed balsalmic anything). We swapped starters so I had the chance to try this one as well. The goats cheese roulade completely overwhelmed the halibut in both size and flavor. The proportion of cheese to fish seemed to indicate that one was expected to take large mouthfuls of cheese with a tiny sliver of fish as an accompaniment. I like cheese as much as the next person, but it was simply too much. Even tiny accents of the cheese taken with the fish overwhelmed the flavor and ultimately I managed only a few bites before I gave up, uninterested.
After our massive starters, even stretched out over about an hour and a half, we weren’t hungry in the least. Feeling too guilty to spend so much time at the table and have only wine and starters, we ordered a main to share. We chose the braised Portobello mushrooms stuffed with black crowdie on a borlotti bean, white cabbage, plum tomato & basil stew, confit garlic coulis. The mushrooms were nice, but the black crowdie had the texture of hard styrofoam and the beans were undercooked to the point of being hard. The flavors and presentation were all quite nice but the individual elements were extremely lacking. This dish was also immense and there is NO way I could have finished it alone.
We also noticed that all mains are served with a small side of steamed vegetables — new potatoes, carrots, broccoli and snow peas. I’m not sure why they do this because while we all love veggies, they didn’t compliment the dish (and it doesn’t seem they would compiment anything on the menu), I certainly didn’t need any more food, and really just think that the restaurant is wasting money on a completely unnecessary extra.
The icing on the cake was when I was sitting in bed later that evening and my stomach was rumbling unhappily. Not with hunger and certainly not as a result of over-​eating, but clearly unimpressed by the sub-​par meal.

Good food and wine at a reasonable price. Not the most comfortable seating, making you feel a bit rushed, but other than that, a good meal.

This is a Scottish themed restaurant, just downstairs from the pub, Teuchters.
Vibrantly painted, yet still quite traditional — it’s warm, comfortable and welcoming. ‘Tables for two’ tend to be placed in tiny little alcoves. Very intimate. But not so ideal if you’re not particularly hoping for an ‘intimate’ dinner. I’ve felt rather uncomfortable when I’ve been put in an alcove with a ‘date’ that I didn’t know very well at allI felt completely separated from the rest of the restaurant and wished I was sitting up at a normal table with the rest of the clientele! But it made for comedy value later anyway.
The food is delicious. And even better is the fact that Vegetarian Haggis usually finds its way onto the menu in some form or anotherwhether as a starter or a main course. Definitely a favourite of mine!
The restaurant is licensed, but feel free to take along a bottle of your own wine if you like. The corkage is rather reasonable too. Lunch deals are rather excellentbut expect to pay more if you go in the evening. Well worth it though.
A lovely restaurant and one of my favourites in Edinburgh!

Vibrantly painted walls in this quaint basement restaurant. Good food and a lively atmosphere. Recommended.

A traditional Scottish restaurant, with a very cosy atmosphere. The staff are always helpful, friendly and polite. The food is a bit pricey, but it’s worth every penny. Always a good selection to choose from too. With BYOB option i think it’s the perfect little place. The food is always of a very high standard and the service is fast. You even get a drumstick lolly when you have paid the bill :) I would recommend A Room In The West End to anyone. There isnt a childrens menu, but i did ask if they would cater for children to which the answer was yes, so also very accommodating if needed to be. It’s best to book in advance for a weekend night as it tends to get very busy, and with good reason :)