Terrace Café

This review appears in the The List's Eating & Drinking Guide 2008 – in the shops now or buy online.

These days, there's an expectation that any credible eating spot in a location such as the Botanic Gardens will share the green credentials of its host. While it isn't quite pulling carrots and salad leaves from a plot outside the kitchen door, there's little doubt that the new regime at the Terrace, Prestige Scotland (part of Sodexo), who took over in 2007, have brought a brighter, lighter and more wholesome look to the well-known café and its food. Seating remains at a premium at lunchtime, with prams and pushchairs adding to the clutter and din. With soups, baked potatoes, quiche, salads and specials it's a conventional enough menu, but there are encouraging signs in their commitment to local sourcing and the range of items created from scratch on the premises. Mushroom and tarragon soup is palpably fresh, if a little lacking in richness, while salmon and potato quiche is thick, light and home-made. Braised beef with dumplings is typical of the dishes of the day, and the ravages of the heat lamps on the veggies not withstanding, offers decent, hearty fare. Sometime in 2009 the Terrace will be joined by a 120-seat restaurant in the new Gateway complex currently under construction at the West Gate, also under the auspices of Prestige.

• High point: Being in the Botanics
• Low point: Seriously poor value Greek salad