Willow Tea Rooms review: Why the Edinburgh Princes Street cafe is best avoided

The Willow Tea Rooms

Nobody wanted to join me for lunch at The Willow Tea Rooms.

The general consensus was that it’s for tourists.

Well, I suppose most Edinburgers know that Charles Rennie Mackintosh was Glasgow’s son.

The original A-listed Mackintosh at the Willow - renamed after a trademark dispute - was established in 1903 by Catherine Cranston and designed, inside and out, by Mackintosh. It’s on Sauchiehall Street and, after changing hands several times over a century or so, the space has been restored and is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland.

This is a West Coast icon. So, it did seem weird when Princes Restaurant Group, who had acquired the 27-year-old Willow Tea Room on Glasgow’s Buchanan Street, opened a branch of these ‘Mackintosh-inspired’ cafes in the Capital.

It’s a bit like having a Nessie Spotters’ Diner beside Loch Fyne.

Anyway, you predictably enter through the gift shop. Browse Art Nouveau nick-nacks, city-line jigsaw puzzles, and glossy plastic totes that say ‘Edinburgh girl’ on them. There’s a second gift shop upstairs, in case you missed the first one, or want a souvenir from both levels.

Though there are beautiful views of Edinburgh Castle on the first floor, the interior - formerly a Starbucks - is a strange one.

It has the lines we associate with Mackintosh, including the tall-backed chairs, but there’s also the rough-around-the-edges and prematurely tired feel of a BHS shopping centre cafe in the Eighties. The frayed snake’s head fritillaries on the table, and in the shonky loos - which are in need of a makeover - are a depressing tribute to Mackintosh’s beautiful botanical prints.

There is white linen on the tables - ooh, fancy - but this fabric is covered with glass panels, and topped by paper napkins, presumably so you don’t get your clarty fingerprints on anything.

The staff call me ‘miss’, which must be in the style of the original Edwardian tearoom. I love it, because I’m so obviously in the ma’am category, but they look slightly embarrassed about this dated affectation and I don’t blame them.

Everyone is having afternoon tea, except me.

Never mind, it looks quite ordinary - three tiers, including crustless white sandwiches, scones and a cake or two.

Instead, I go for the Scottish platter (£16.95), from a section that’s cringingly named ‘traditional Scottish fayre’. I haven’t seen that word on a menu since the early Noughties. I thought it had been banished, along with olde worlde.

I’m presented with a mixed assemblage.

I’ll start with the good bits - three equilateral triangles of decent Arran Cheddar, and two fat bricks of workaday chicken liver pate. There are only four mini oatcakes - not enough for the application of both of these proteins, so I end up eating them neat. The menu promised ‘rustic bread’, but that didn’t materialise.

Along with a large leafy salad, there are also three ramekins of the same size. One is filled with a decent smoked-haddock-heavy Cullen skink, which I managed not to slosh while awkwardly spooning it out of the tiny pot.

The other is packed with an apricoty chutney, which obliterates the flavours of everything else with its extreme vinegaryness.

The boobie prize container is full of leathery prawns in a Marie Rose sauce. They’re tough and fibrous, like the Iggy Pops of the crustacean world. And what’s so Scottish about prawn cocktail, anyway? Its invention is often credited to Fanny Craddock, and she’s as English as jellied eels.

For pudding, there are plenty of cakes to choose from. Made at their ‘in-house bakery’, they say. They look very uniform under the counter. There’s carrot cake, lemon drizzle, strawberry tarts, lemon meringue tart, iced gingerbread, and other colourful crowd pleasers.

I wonder if I’m the first person to ignore those, and order the clootie dumpling and custard (£5.95) instead. They get a point for having this on the menu. I haven’t eaten it since my granny was alive and I’m primed for a hit of nostalgia.

However, this is a chewy beast, with the texture of packing foam, and it’s cold. I struggle to cut through its flanks with my spoon. It feels like amputating a leg with a drinking straw.

My accompanying custard comes in a small and nuclear hot jug. Once I’ve removed the thick layer of skin on the top, I can lubricate the raisin-clad slice, so it slides down my oesophagus like a sledge on dry sand. I also have a cup of their Mackintosh (£3.80) tea - a ‘unique blend of Assam, Ceylon, Darjeeling and Kenya teas’ - but it tastes just like bog-standard breakfast.

This place obviously isn’t about food, and it doesn’t feel like an authentic tribute to Mackintosh either.

I shall go elsewhere for my Scottish fayre.

The Willow Tea Rooms

120a Princes Street

Edinburgh

(0131-626 3933. www.willowtearooms.co.uk)

The Verdict

How much? Lunch for one, excluding drinks, £22.90

Food 3/10

Ambience 4/10

7/20