La Rusticana, Edinburgh

I booked a party of 16 people for Saturday 21 November 2009. I had checked with restaurant if it would be helpful to give them our choice of menu in advance which they refused. I checked on Thursday, again on Saturday afternoon if all Ok which they confirmed. Our booking was for 8.30 p.m. but our food did not appear until after 10.30p.m. The meals ordered were mostly Filet Steaks and Chicken Rusticano which were served with a small helping of potato! Most steaks were not cooked to order and sauce on Chicken was luke warm. They were not interested in our comments and bill was requested in full! I would definitely not recommend this restaurant to my worst enemy.

The staff were friendly enough but could have used another waiter or two to deal with the 8pm rush on a Saturday evening during the Festival. Needed four requests to get a jug of water. Extensive menu of all the Italian standards but all of our meals were tired and uninspired from what felt like a production line rather than a kitchen. Not over expensive,though,and the house wine was decent. Italian diners,I fear,would have been scathing! Once was enough.

Visited this restaurant to celebrate a 40th BIrthday. The service was awful, took two hours to serve the main course. When a complaint was made to the manager(owner) we were told we should be grateful we were being served, since we were giving the staff a lot of extra work!! Surely a restaurant can cope with a party of 18 people!! Definately not to be recommended.