The Roseleaf

Just visited the Roseleaf bar for the second time this year. First was with friends over the summer who had discovered this gem and thought that I would appreciate the quirky atmosphere, which I did immensely. At the time (a buzzing friday night) I sampled the "pot-tail" menu- eclectic cocktails served out of china teapots, delicious. This time around I brought my mum on a more gentle tuesday lunch-time. She is vegetarian and always commenting on the lack of imaginative dishes on offer to her in many of our fair cities establishments. Well I must say thanks to this lovely little place, not only did mum have an array of well thought out dishes to choose from but there wasn't a veggie lasagne or mushroom stroganoff in sight.
We shared a "grazing platter" to start and were delighted when a plate full of red pepper pate,bulgar wheat salad,goats cheese tart, olives and chargrilled courgette arrived. For mains it was a vegetarian puff pastry wellington with saute mushroom and spinach for mum and a clean, fresh dish comprising mackeral, bak choi and brown shrimp for myself. We finished off our lazy lunch with a very distinct tonka bean panna cotta, a very elegant desert and again so original.
It just shows what a little imagination can produce, and this place is briming over. So glad that amongst the generic and bland this city still has places with personality that take the time to think outside the box. xxx.

I was in the Roseleaf on Saturday night and had the Homemade Game Pie with a side of Mac & Cheese. Both were outstanding, and no matter what I offered the chef would not part with her secret ingredient in the pie. Everyone working seemed more like family than co-workers and the warm and friendly atmosphere ensured that we'll return on our next trip to Scotland. We highly recommend a visit, and the only down side is that it's hard to leave. I was driving so I didn't get a chance to sample the cocktails but the wife looked pretty happy as we left.
Next time, the nacho's will be sampled as we saw them come out for the table next to us and it looked incredible.

all the best and hope to return soon.

Having been to the Roseleaf for drinks before I was really looking forward to having dinner there. But it did dissapoint - massively. The drinks will always be good and the concept of pot cocktails is great. However the staff were unhelpful, unaccomodating and quite argumentative. Firstly, being pescetarian I thought I would have alot of options. But they had run out of all the veggie options (our dinner was at 8) but hadn't even considered calling us before hand to tell us. My only option was the catch of the day which one waitress told me was served with a salad. On arrival it was a fish on a bed on chorizo linguine so I couldn't eat it. Calling another waitress over to tell her about the problem, she made me feel that I had read the menu wrong (it only said catch of the day!) and I was being an incovenience. Eventually I got the fish, mash and about a tablespoon of overcooked aubergine and had to pay £9.95. To top it off the service was slow. No apologies from anyone and It eventually felt like the staff were trying to ignore us. I would avoid dinner!