Afternoon Tea At Stirling Highland

Beautiful afternoon tea served by lovely friendly staff. Great choice of food: sausage rolls, sandwiches, scones and cakes, tea/coffee.

Basic table setting, no tablecloth, paper napkins, basic crockery, uninviting, sandwiches nice, scone warm , but cakes dreadful, no top up of tea offered, visit disappointing

Appalling service, with waitress shouting across restaurant and failed to offer Prosecco that I had paid for when purchased itison voucher. Coffee weak, tepid and of poor quality. Four small cakes, no scones as I have a raisin allergy and they only have pre-purchased from England. I required to stop at a garage for food and coffee. The waiver to remove sandwiches not required as unavailable as was packaging for cakes. The total experience was worse than poor; I wrote and email on Thursday morning and this was responded to on Tuesday by manager David Sougall; with a list of excuses as why it was not that bad and 99% of people where satisfied. This took me to look at Trip adviser and they obviously fail to review this as it is certainly not 99% satisfaction. Avoid avoid avoid- the 15% reduction offered was not an incentive.

Received a voucher for my birthday in 2020 (which was extended due to covid) when I tried to book the person on the phone was extremely abrupt (I phoned on the Tuesday asking if there was possibly any space for Wednesday; admittedly they voucher does say 72 hours notice however I thought I would see if they were free; which she was very abrupt in telling me that there was no change in the 72 hours which was fine as we just were working around days off). Which then meant we booked for the Saturday. We arrived 5 minutes early and on signing in initially the waitress took a while to find the booking however then found it and highlighted it on the sheet…we were asked to wait in the bar, where we waited and a separate member of staff said they had no record of the booking however would “try and squeeze us in” where we then seen only 4 other occupied tables. Staff were inattentive, didn’t have the basics of decaf tea stating “can’t find it” after saying they had it, then brought tea without milk….then when the stand was brought over we noticed ours looked nothing like anyone else’s, half the cakes; which were stale, scones which were flat and soggy and an uneven amount of bland sandwiches. Nobody attended to the table at all during our time there. On leaving to pay for the soft drink we had (as one person doesn’t drink tea/coffee which most places would alter an alternative drink free of charge not here almost £3 for a soft drink) as the place was not well manned, I checked the booking sheet as I wanted to know what was highlighted when I said my name had booked almost 5 days earlier to arrive and be told there was no record and would be squeezed in with an afternoon tea that certainly represented that only to discover my name was on the list however had been spelt wrong (not that I was ever asked the spelling on booking or arriving so that’s totally beside the point I was actually booked in) and it was clear as it even stated type of voucher I had quoted on the phone and correct number of people! Very poor wouldn’t return or recommend especially not as a gift as we felt a complete inconvenience first and last time visiting! Whilst there is a lift to get there I also feel for people with disabilities/Prams it’s an inconvenience to get to narrow corridors and a bit of a walk the only way we entered/left the building there was stairs Be mindful of the parking to enter your details at reception staff don’t tell you about this but it’s well signed in the carpark machine is at hotel reception which we had to go to anyway to find out where we were going.

Okay I love an afternoon tea. This one was the best I have had and was super fresh and served with a smile. Super fresh finger sandwhiches including Coronation chicked. Cheese and pickle and tuna and superbly presented. Warm fresh scones (huge) with clotted cream jams and butter and a good selection of nice cakes and extra tea was no problem from the attentive staff.