The Tower

Chambers Street, Edinburgh

visited 5/3/2011


I seem to be unlucky with The Tower. I went when it first opened and it was all rather chaotic. A few months later the service had been sorted out but the food was pretty mediocre. But I needed somewhere attractive to have lunch with a good friend so I thought I’d see how the years had treated it. In the intervening time Edinburgh has acquired a lot of rival “destination” restaurants, and in many cases the supposed destination turns out to be a cul-de-sac. The Tower, on top of the new bit of the museum, has a view that only really works if you’re facing one way at a window. The seating is looking a bit shabby and the ceiling is badly stained. Still, the service was efficient and cheerful and we liked the look of the “light lunch” menu. "Light" was correct: we had an alleged prawn toast with crab—this was more like a samosa with a fugitive taste of these crustaceans. Quite nice, but it might have been better to use cheaper ingredients with more presence. Next we both had a salmon fish cake that was pretty unexceptional and shared a very substantial and solid chocolate tart with a really good, but incongruous, pistachio ice cream. We had a reasonably priced glass of Perrier-Jouet champagne as part of the lunch deal and a glass of really excellent Riesling.

But if these lunch deals (it was£21 without the pudding and Riesling) are supposed to be a loss leader to tempt you back it didn’t really work. It was all very pleasant, but not distinctive enough to suggest dinner next. The Tower also has an annoying habit of automatically telling you they will need the table back after 2 hours. Needless to say, it was not as busy is this is perhaps meant to imply.