Balcony Cafe in Edinburgh, City of

Over priced and food was under whelming definitely not worth the money. Staff clearing tables were trying hard to keep on top of things but were very obviously under staffed. Staff serving behind the counter were rude and insisting people pay by card as they had no change. If you can't accommodate people paying by cash put up a sign advising people before they choose their food. Would not use again.

Great coffee and cakes. Staff were friendly and helpful and the setting is fantastic! Love the latte art as well!

Great spot! Super friendly staff and the desserts aren’t too sweet! Just perfect Went with my partner and it was a cute day out in town

We had teenagers who needed to sit down and refuel. Even though they were very busy, it was a Sunday, service was quick and efficient, and done with a smile. No signs of stress due to the crowds at all. I had the ginger cake which was delicious. Norbert was particularly helpful when he could see we needed some help with the girls. Thank you for providing an oasis in a challenging day!

When you are at The National Museum of Scotland but are too early for your slot at your chosen exhibition and need somewhere comfortable to sit, then the place that I'm about to review is the place for you, and that place is the Balcony Cafe which is literally across the way from the Doctor Who exhibition which I was visiting today where myself my friend and mum enjoyed a quick drink before making our way to the Doctor Who exhibition, it was a great place to sit and watch the world go by while enjoying an Irn Bru while waiting for our slot. I would recommend this cafe

This café has a very nice location within the National Museum of Scotland. We enjoyed our visit as we were very much in need of a coffee break whilst visiting this large museum. The coffee was good quality and they take cash.

Had soup and a sandwich while visiting the museum. It was quite pricey but probably to be expected. The food was really tasty, especially the soup. Also the staff were helpful and friendly.

Did pop in for a wee drink and it was delicious, not to mention the amazing latte art on coffee. You guys made my day!

Friendly staff, lovely environment, comfortable chairs and good coffee. This cafe sits in one of the nicest rooms in the whole of Edinburgh.

After a tour of the fabulous museum we had a light lunch in the cafe. Although we aren’t vegan or even vegetarian we chose a vegan sandwich that was absolutely delicious….vegan cheese, butternut squash, salad & vegan mayo. The service was fast & efficient.

This could be a fantastic cafe if they had someone to organise and manage it. The staff were shocking and pretty lazy. One guy serving and another making coffee, the rest were standing around the dirty dishes, all of them clearly bored. I asked one if she could start serving so she served one person and then went back to the dirty dishes. Coffee was mediocre but the cakes did look good. I waited in a fairly small queue for 15 minutes and would have left but was on my lunch break and didn't have time to walk somewhere else. The next time I visit the museum I won't be having a coffee.

We enjoyed our noon snack at the Balcony Cafe, seated on the third floor balcony. A scone and lemon cake with a cup of coffee suited us perfectly. Very good service, and an excellent job of keeping the customer seating area clean.

Had a coffee stop here while visiting the museum. I feel this place kind of lets the museum down. It has a fab location on the balcony, but the offerings are disappointing and lacklustre. I've been here before and thought the same. The staff were pleasant especially the girl who cleaned our table. Coffee was ok too, just the choice of cakes I would take issue with, though it was after 3 in the afternoon. Could do better. Certainly nothing available that would compare with the picture shown above.

Sky high prices, indifferent service and grim food. £2.65 for a tea, teabag served in a stainless steel teapot - asked for some milk, and was told they didn’t have any jugs, and that they were short of everything and were short staffed too. Told them that sounded a bit unreasonable, as the cup was tiny, and I’d have to return to the counter twice to get milk from what was apparently the only jug in the cafe. The server suggested it wasn’t his fault… which isn’t exactly what you expect to hear when you’ve just paid over a fiver for a tea and can of juice. Glass for the juice was plastic and dirty. Scones looked like lethal weapons. We didn’t order food, but other tables seem to give up on there’s. Lots of lovely cafes around the museum. Think this one relies on it’s convenient position, but really doesn’t deserve our custom

Stopped off here for a quick morning coffee to wake myself up a bit, and absolutely loved it! Highly recommended, even if just for a short pick-me-up!

Very overpriced. Mocha was meh, hot chocolate was worse. Very weak hot chocolate. Pre made kids lunch boxes are £5 for a Pom bear, tiny sandwich, cheap cheap juice and a couple of other cheap treats. Cakes not homemade quality, tasted very artificial. Ambience was...

Horrible service from team leader. He doesn't care about customers and staff. Very rude attitude. The way how he speaks with his staff is not acceptable!

Great food, superb location, brilliant staff. This is one of the nicest locations in Scotland for a coffee. Yes, it is a bit pricey but this is due to the tendering process from what I can remember. Shop pays the museum, museum gets a bit...

The Balcony Cafe is situated within the National Museum of Scotland. After a lengthy exploration of this amazing museum we were tired and weary and in need of a hot drink. We only had a tea and a coffee on this occasion but the cakes...

Nice place for a rest. Good selection of drinks and cakes. Ok service. Lovely view of the rest of the museum.

..a little pricey! Why is it that cafes invariably seem to fall into the trap of charging top prices? Captive market? It was a well earned stop from the Museum tour

we shared lunch (my husband, our granddaughter and i) whilst exploring the museum. the Coffee is good, our sandwiches and cake tasted nice and home made they were fresh and moist.

Excellent place for quick lunch, with good variety of choices.on the menu. Delicious food. Only criticism is that there weren’t enough seats.

The lcoation is lovely and convenient when getting tired during the museum visit. This is a self service area. Prices are normal and the coffee is ok. Sadly most guests do not return the trays when finishing their break and the staff did not clear...

We were on vacation so didnt think to pack a lunch. This little cafe was exactly what we needed to rest and refresh. Food was good and we could people watch and then continue on our museum adventure.

Ridiculously expensive and baguettes that are better suited to be used as door stops. No service, it's help yourself whilst uunhappy staff look on.

The National Gallery is such a great gallery and everything else about it is fantastic so this should be too but the lack of service lets it down badly. It is a self service restaurant with good basic sandwiches and soup and ok value for...

Just visited for a small lunch while visiting the museum. The coffee was very good and the light bites equally satisfying. A very nice location in the musem not tucked in a side room but on a balcony withng the museum. Really nice space to...

Much better than the offerings at the more expensive Museum Brasserie. The cakes are delicious, not too sweet, and plenty of choice. Absolutely excellent coffee.

Such a shame. Captive audience. Great spot. NO vegetarian food. And the kids lunch box was over priced @ £5.00 for tiny sandwich, apple and a tunnocks snack. And to top it off: no seats.

There was a nice variety of sandwiches and cakes available, which were a bit pricey but were worth the cost. The staff were very friendly and went out of their way to help us despite being very busy. All in all a very nice visit

Often very busy and it can be hard to find a table but if you do it’s good for a quick coffee and a light lunch or snack.

You have two choices to stay here or at the ground floor at another cafe, this cafe has a good view and it's like a break to continue discovering the museum!

The museum is so vast, that it is great to have a little cafe where you can kick back and have a cup of tea and a snack. It is set overlooking the museum gallery, so you can still enjoy being in the ambiance of the museum. Very good tea and pastries.

Downstairs cafe was very welcoming and clean very nice selection of cakes coffee was great we had lunch upstairs soup was nice and hot although it's noisy with all the children and not much seating space.

Produits de qualité très moyenne. Très peu de tables qui sont extrêmement petites - 2 plateaux de la "cafétéria" y tiennent tout juste. Service à la chaîne. Déjeuner dans le brouhaha du musée. Bel emplacement. Pratique mais pas qualitatif.

내셔널뮤지엄오브스코틀랜드에서 특유의 인테리어를 즐기며 쉬어가기 좋은 곳. 세븐체어로 이루어진 카페가 인상깊었다.

Popped in for a cuppa whist wandering round the vast museum. Nice large airy, plenty of seating. Selling light snacks, cakes, and decent coffee. Pretty average prices for what you get in such a place... service ok. just nice to sit down and relax for a while

for tea and a snack. after hours of exploring the museum. Limited menu but fast service seeing it was incredibly busy. Scottish baked good and drinks, soft drinks other than tea.

Ce petit café situé en plein coeur du musée royal est un atout. Il offre sandwiches et gâteaux, on peut s'installer où l'on veut et on profite d'une vue plongeante sur le musée et les oeuvres d'art situées autour. Les produits sont frais et délicieux, et l'endroit offre une halte idéale pendant la visite.

Delicious cakes and hot chocolate. Lovely place to take a break whilst visiting this beautiful museum.

This is the cafe on the 3rd floor in the National Museum. It is a lovely airy space. Drinks were good, with lovely fresh lemonade. Service was decent too

Qué luminoso y encantador lugar para sentarse - el balcón de la gran galería. Comimos allí dos veces recientemente, y nos pareció que el café tiene un delicioso café, sándwiches, y sopa. El personal felizmente calentado nuestros sándwiches y ellos trajeron a la mesa. Pensamos que los precios parecía comparable a cafeterías cerca, y nos encantó beber en el ambiente con nuestro café.

This is a large museum with lots to see so the cafe was a nice place to sit and relax. Many items to choose from and a great view of the museum. Glad we stopped.

Came for a kids event and thought we'd have lunch beforehand. £5 for packed sandwich, £5 for kids lunch box with only tiny plain white sandwich, water, fruit and tunnocks tea cake- not exactly healthy for a toddler. Coffee also not good. Expected more from national museum of Scotland in city centre edinburgh. Better to bring a packed lunch than eat here

£3 - 80 para un pequeño pedazo de bizcocho, £2 - 60 para los más pobres corta el pan que he probado en mi vida. No puedes comprar snacks individuales pequeñas para los niños, pero tienes que comprar un paquete de "almuerzo" en £4 - 95 si quieres satisfacer para ellos y también es muy pobre.

Very curious why they choose to only sell cans of fizzy, well known brand, juice and no healthier alternatives like apple or orange juice!?

He disfrutado romper una visita al museo con un merecido café y un bollo! El café recién hecho, por supuesto, estaban ricamente aromatizada, y el bollo se sirve con mantequilla, nata y mermelada era fresco y delicioso. La oferta es de 5 libras para que café con bollo no es mucho fuera de línea por el centro de Edimburgo. Dado que este maravilloso museo es gratuito, no debería haber ninguna queja! El personal es muy cálido y amable.

Hot drinks expensive and not particularly good, the hot chocolate was sickly sweet and mostly milk foam. The coffee was ok, but nothing special.

It's rather expensive for fairly average coffee, but the staff are nice and it's a great place to sit. I think it must have been 'take your baby to the museum day' when we were there which we thought was sweet, but might irritate some customers.

Decided we would have lunch here but were disappointed. No choice of soup, limited selection of sandwiches. Large baguettes which were difficult to cut and very chewy. Tea was good. Don't think we will return.

Dopo aver visitato il Museo Nazionale di Scozia è davvero piacevole sedersi ad uno dei tavolini del Balcony Caffè. Molto tranquillo. È possibile accompagnare un espresso ( anche qui nella media .. ) con uno dei dolci presenti nel buffet.

This was an intermission during a visit to this wonderful museum. We had coffees and fruit scones, which were fresh, large and delicious. The coffees were excellent, and the staff, nice. There are deals so it’s not too expensive. In any event, entrance to the museum is free! I would highly recommend.

Ik heb dit café bezocht tijdens een bezoek aan het nationale museum van Schotland. Het voordeel van het café is dat je hier kan zitten zonder wat te eten te bestellen en zo even kan uitrusten. Het eten is niets bijzonders en eigenlijk een beetje te duur naar mijn mening. Er is weinig variatie aan broodjes en tussendoortjes. Het café zit vaak erg vol, de bediening is langzaam waardoor vuil lang op de tafels blijft staan. Kom hier niet voor het eten, maar gebruik de tafeltjes om even uit te rusten van al het rondlopen in het museum.

met a friend from college that i had not seen for 40 years and he suggested the balcony cafe at national museum.it was crowded and i thought i would not get atable but somebody left before i arrived.good counter service,with great coffee and muffins

Trevligt kafé med bra utbud av smörgåsar och goda bakverk. Bra service. Rent och fräscht. Man kan sitta en stund och låta barnen kika runt på museet.

Un típico restaurante de franquicia - caro Benugo! El servicio era particularmente lento; hay dos secciones separadas, pero sólo uno fue abierto con 2 - personal de servir y ayudar a otros y teniendo el dinero. Estábamos en la cola para alrededor de 20 minutos para el té y bizcocho. Casi ningún cambio desde £20 por 3 - 3 rodajas y tés de pequeño pastel.

Demasiado caro para un café, todo demasiado caro, así que ten cuidado. Vete a otro lado, ya que hay muchos restaurantes fuera del museo, que están mucho mejor relación calidad-precio

Stopped with my friend for a coffee and cake. Just excatly what we needed after all day of sightseeing;) The welcome and the service is brilliant so is the quality of the food. We had really lovely and fresh scones and some cakes. I like my coffe so I know when it tastes good and I would definitely recommend this place for an afternoon treat.

Au 3° niveau du Museum of Scotland, thés, salades etc bel observatoire pour l'ambiance familiale du musée.

A family of 4 adults and a child went to the museum for the day, decided to have a spot of lunch at the Balcony Cafe, you expect to pay higher prices but you do expect a reasonable standard of food stillThe children's cheese sandwich was extremely dry. I'd say more staleThe adults sandwiches where even worse. When we asked the assistant what could be done the assistant said we can cut it up for you into slices..... I've never been more shocked in my life ! We bought desserts at the same time and ther where marginally better

After a while on your feet at any museum, you need a rest and something to aid revival! This was no different, and fitted the bill perfectly. The coffees were very good, and the various scones and cakes, delicious. It's situated on a balcony so the outlook into the museum is open and interesting. The staff are pleasant and helpful. It's probably a little expensive, but as entrance to the museum is free, there can be no complaints. I would definitely recommend.

嗰度同探我年幼的兒子, 很高興與簡單選擇嘅食物同孩子能得到嘅嘢。 佢鍾意仔框。 畀我印象係點樣幫助和周到的工作人員啦! 直到佢服務, 令我吃驚嘅係好多客都粗魯和困難。 佢脹同明顯緊張嘅一日!

The Balcony Cafe provides a pleasant setting to sit and have a rest during a visit to the museum. It was very busy and we had to wait for a table. Staff were working hard. The coffee was acceptable. The clementine and almond cake was ok. The shortbread was awful.

Great coffee, charming atmosphere, very helpful staff, wonderful great hall. Could quite happily sit here everyday... That's it.

Awful. It's never great, but today the fridge containing the children's sandwiches was broken and everything in it was room temperature. Told a member of staff who did nothing about it and still hadn't two hours later when we left - people were still buying ham sandwiches for their kids which had been sitting out unrefrigerated for hours.My soup was so salty, I couldn't eat it - the nice member of staff I spoke to gave me a refund, but the woman I'd spoken to about the fridge rolled her eyes and smirked when he told her what he was doing.Didn't have coffee today, but it's always rubbish. They really need to up their game - is such a great location.

There are many better places to eat around this museum so it is not worth eating here. You are just a captive customer really. It was not good value, not interesting and the best thing was the view. The staff are nice but the food is not.

Visited there with my young son and was happy with the simple selection of food and kids stuff available.He loved the kids box. What struck me was how helpful and attentive the staff were! its till service and to my surprise many customers were rude and difficult. It was heaving and clearly a stressful day!

The cafe is overpriced, selection of food is poor although what we had tasted fine the selection wasn't up to much if you only wanted something simple like ham & cheese... Tables are laid out in such a way it makes them difficult to get to when busy, we had a buggy and it was interesting getting in and out.. Staff seemed friendly and plenty going around clearing tables although there was dropped food on the floor that some of them must have walked over but done nothing about (certainly not the half hour we where sitting next to it!!) Overall I'd suggest they know it is a captive market and advantage has been taken...

Went there with my mum and her friend for some tea and coffee. As it was at lunch hour, the queue was quite long. When we were paying, somehow my mum's friend accidentally caused the whole tray to fall! Much to our surprise and delight, the staffs replaced our drinks and food without charging us!

Never ever again! We have ordered 5 soups with bread and 2 juices. 1 soup was ready (green tai curry) - very oily and for 4 we had to wait. Soup which arrived late was supposed to be lentil and sweet potato - hard to say what it was as had no taste at all and kids refused to eat it. Slow stuff, extremely dirty and very expensive. My advice: when you visit National Museum bring your own food or eat somewhere else.

You would think it would be difficult to destroy a brie, salad and chutney sandwich. There are after all only four components (including the bread). However, sad to say, the Balcony cafe succeeded. The bread tasted like it had just been dug out of the perm frost, cold, rather wet and, curiously, also sticky. Apparently this was a "Parisian" sandwich. I expect that any visiting Parisians might be justly offended. This was quite simply a bad sandwich. Such a shame since the Balcony occupies a substantial part of the Gallery space on the second floor of the grand hall of the National Museum in Chambers Street and which must surely be one of the most beautiful and iconic structures in Europe. It would have been nice to have munched on an equally iconic sandwich in such a wonderful environment. They need to up their game and achieve the same standard as the very acceptable eatery on the ground floor.

We popped into museum on a wet day. Decided to have a cuppa to use up some time. We should have noticed nobody else seemed to have hot drinks. We bought 2 coffees. They cost £5 and were absolutely vile. it was like drinking brown bitter fluid. We couldnt finish them, such a waste and very dissatisfying on our day out.

Went on New Year's day which was exceptionally busy. We went for tea and cake. Loose leaf tea was placed in strange sheets which were then hanging out of the tea pot in a most unattractive fashion. There was too many tea leaves in the pot so the second cup of tea was bitter and far too strong. The green tea was particularly ruined as it should be a delicate refreshing drink and instead was over-brewed and bitter. The St Clements cake was quite good and the scone with jam and cream was delicious. Don't understand why they advertise loose leaf tea though.

Plastic spoons to eat very hot soup!!! Flimsy plastic forks and knives to eat salads with!!! Plastic dessert spoons to stir a hot drink with!!! At 1330 there was only one soup on offer and yet by the time the till point had been reached a replacement second soup had been brought to the counter. Perhaps this was pure mistiming on our part. The potato and fennel salad consisted of potato with a thin mayonnaise style dressing with tiny pieces of cucumber, I could detect no hint of fennel, very disappointing. Overall both my girlfriend and I were most disappointed and shall not be returning.

Typically over priced as it is situated in the museum. The tea was disgusting - couldn't finish a cup and still had another cups worth still left in the pot. Never again

Never again!. Expected to get a decent cuppa, boy was I disappointed. The tea tasted like the teabag had been there for years. At the price decent tea bags wouldn't be too much to ask for

Clean tables, Bright and Friendly with lots attentive yet not intrusive staff. Self service by tray-quick. Decent Quality and range leaf and herb teas with range cakes, biscuits if req.Good decaff cappuccinos and tasty soup, salad and saanie options. Private nooks and wide spaces too. Down side is loos down a floor unless disabled as only 1 disabled loo gets quickly full..but see through lifts are frequent. I say light and airy as the bistro seems very dark on ground floor even if the grub is good.