Smoke And Soul in Aberdeen City

As it is named, the firepit, you expect some decent Meat from a bbq to be served. No steaks, but a good burger can solve the problem, so their best "the smoke and soul", Meat served on a soft role,clearly not from a bbq fire , not a piece of salad , onion or tomaten, but i must admit crispy Fries. As that is their best seller, then the expectations of clients are low. Next time it is back to the old Brown pub with the traditional pub meals.

Went here for dinner with some friends as had heard good things. Unfortunately it turned out to be a disappointing visit. The drinks menu is an odd QR code scan which takes you to a Google Docs site to download one of several files. This seems a bit lazy and would be better served with a drinks board. When the drinks arrived however they were a very nice selection of beers. Our starters however arrived and were not what we’d call a large sharing portion. Thankfully the waitress had misheard us and gave us an additional sharing starter consisting of nachos with pulled pork, pulled chicken and pulled beef. This helped fill a hole but it was difficult to taste the difference in the meats as they had no flavour. Roll on the main courses…. Although we had a 35 minute wait for them to arrive. These were tiny portions. Again we were grateful for the mistaken starter but again the meats we had been given were bland. Even the sauce on top of the meats had little flavour or spice. Sad to say that the experience left a lot to be desired and although the beers were excellent the food was definitely below par for a venue claiming to offer fine smoked meats. Will be back for drinks but would not recommend eating here.

Beer was great, food was v slow...food was going out the door to deliveroo...lots of bar customers waiting and not particularly special for the price...not good enough to go back for food

Booked a table a week in advance for 1730. Only 3 other tables were occupied when we arrived, table was reserved for us though and marked as such. Had to ask for table to be cleaned as there was still evidence of previous customers drinks on the table. Table was partially cleaned but I wouldn’t call it thorough. Drinks were very expensive and difficult to see other than walking to the bar to see what was on offer. Another Tripadvisor review said there was a QR code on the menu but we weren’t advised of this by our server. In addition to beer being expensive it was served in a variety of 1/3’s, 1/2’s, 2/3’s or full pints but with no rhyme nor reason to why each one was served in it’s respective measure - completely bizarre. Food was ok. Skin On Fries which we both chose as our base were lukewarm at best. Brisket and Smoked Chicken served as our meat were well flavoured and tender. Haggis Bon Bon’s were good served with a nice peppercorn sauce. Not sure that I would go back due to lack of cleanliness of table (it’s not difficult to clean a table thoroughly once vacated). Great selection of beers but let down by a very confusing drinks menu/system. Oh and dogs are welcome but one of the dogs that was there when we were in was standing on the chair of one of the booths with it sniffing food that was on the table. The dog owners maybe permit this on their own home but shouldn’t be permitted in a restaurant particularly as they weren’t that great at cleaning tables between customers. Staff seemed more interested in the constant stream of Deliveroo/Just Eat/etc couriers than the restaurant customers.

On arrival the place was clean, inviting and well laid out. There was a mix of cosy booths and larger open tables. The staff were friendly, welcoming and took us over to our table. Unfortunately the table legs in the booths are at an angle and hit your legs no matter how or where you sit. I smacked my knee whilst sitting down. The food menus look good with lots of soul food, there are options for most and the star of the show sems to be their "build your own" option. I opted for the skin on fries, brisket with buffalo and blue cheese topping. To see the drinks menu you have to scan a QR code and visit a google drive and then open a PDF. Hardly ideal and straight away we were all looking at our phones. Our starters came out in 10 minutes and the order was wrong. Not a problem and this simple mistake was handled well. We had the sharing platter, Buffalo wings, poppers and halloumi fries. The wings were well cooked but bland, the poppers were evidently straight out of the freezer and still cold in the middle. The fries were good and the matched chilli sauce was moreish. We were given the sharing nachos that had been accidentally delivered to our table, a £21 starter. This featured nachos topped with the usuals and three smoked meats, chicken, pork and beef. At first look the three were indistinguishable in appearence. They were also all bland and pretty indistinguishable in taste. Such a shame for a soul food smokehouse. We then had to wait over 45 minutes to recieve our mains. During this time there was no offer of more drinks and whilst we sat there we watched boxes of frozen food get walked past on their way to the kitchen. There was also an annoying doorbell that could be heard throughout at a regular interval. I later guessed this must be to announce the arrival of a food courrier. When our food did arrive it was a let down. The portions were small and looked very homogeneous. My skin on fries had no skin and resembled McCains finest freezer chips, certainly nothing like the chips shown in the pictures of other reviews. Tasteless and unseasoned. My brisket was tender but absolutely tasteless. A 10% service charge is automatically added to your bill so be aware. I hate this practice and I believe it costs the servers directly. We left it on rather than have the wairtress regenerate our total. Getting out of the place was awkward due to the ebikes and deliveroo staff waiting on the thin pavement outside. Maybe a good idea to have them wait on the other side of the road? So in short a great venue and staff let down by sub par, tasteless, meek, souless reheated food. Gutted as this could be such a great thing. I suggest the owners visit America and get an understanding of soul food and BBQ cooking as this is so far from the mark.