The Lawn in East Lothian

We love this hotel for the wonderful location & the bedrooms – we stay a few times a year and always book a beautiful deluxe sea view room. This review is for the Lawn restaurant which has recently changed to a new menu - the website invited us to “Savour the finest Italian cuisine with a menu that marries the flavours of Italy with quality Scottish produce” - we love Italian cuisine so were really looking forward to this! Sadly it was a big disappointment – very far from the ‘finest cuisine’ they promised! The focaccia bread brought to us was burnt to a crisp and emitting a scorched smell, it was swiftly replaced but not much improved! The starters of arancini and mussels were just ok, the main course of pizza was totally inedible – it was burnt on the edges, sloppy and greasy in the middle. The restaurant manager came to apologise and kindly offered anything else from the menu but by this time we were so discouraged and fed up we thought it safest to leave it there. Really hope this restaurant is much improved in time for our next visit! Perhaps a change in the menu….if perhaps Italian cuisine is not the kitchen or chef’s forte?

Although I appreciated the good service, great wine and drink selection and the strong starters, the mains for the Italian restaurant have room for improvement with their flavours and quality of pasta. I felt my meal was much too basic for the price point and I was surprised to find the pasta itself fairly soft, sauce too loose consistency and flat in the flavour. Simple and fresh ingredients, done to perfection is what you’re wanting with Italian food - done well it is one of the most satisfying cuisines so I was disappointed with The Lawn’s offering. I strongly feel that the current menu could be pulled off and improved with extra time spent perfecting these dishes. As the pricing is so high, it’s important it warrants it - and it currently doesn’t. £150 for two people should be a truly singular experience and The Lawn isn’t delivering that yet.

I’ve given it 3 stars (average) rather than 2 (poor) because the food was actually good and the portion sizes were too. But the service was some of the worst we’ve had in a while. The waitress had absolutely not a scoobie when asked anything about the menu and how to cater it for myself who is dairy-free. I was then served 2 courses which both had dairy on them despite asking for them to be dairy-free. We weren’t checked back on once. Better management of sections would be advisable going forward. It is a really lovely restaurant with so much potential they just need to provide better staff training and cater more effectively for dietary requirements.

Overall a terrible experience. Things started badly when the waitress brought us the wrong menu. We then were brought the wrong wine menu, waited 30 minutes for a drink, 40 minutes for a starter then 1 hour 40 minutes for our main. By this point we had given up and didn’t even wait for our dessert that we prepaid for. Five star prices 1 star service sums it up.

I agree somewhat with the previous review - good food but fawlty towers service. We thoroughly enjoyed the food itself and our wine and the service started very well in The Lawn restaurant. However, service became extremely slow after more people arrived and when we eventually got the bill they had added a whole extra bottle of wine (!) This was taken off and we moved to the Bass Rock bar, many tables were without people but full of dirty glasses and then our bill at the end of that, after ordering two drinks, seems to come to more than the drinks (as they appeared on the menu) should have, but we weren’t offered a receipt to see why. It’s unfortunate as it’s such a beautiful place, the food is delicious and the staff themselves are lovely - there just appears to be significant mistakes for an establishment of the standard they’re striving for, and perhaps an overall need for more staff?

If I could give it -100 I would. The evening was laughable from the start. It was like being in the set of faulty towers. One issue after another resulted us getting up from the table and leaving without eating our main courses . We are local to this restaurant, we thought it was worth giving it a chance even though others have not given it any praise, but we can say with certainty we will not be back. I feel sorry for the chef that works here as the quality of the food was good, everything else as far as service and knowledge is concerned was a shambles.

We had a superb Sunday lunch for my mothers birthday this afternoon with all the family. Food was excellent and service attentive and engaging. The pricing seemed reasonable and view was fantastic. I’d highly recommend this place and ignore the bad reviews.

Food was delicious. Service was great. Beautiful views of the sea. All around great experience. Have the sticky toffee pudding for dessert. Next level!

Had a lovely Sunday Lunch, which was beautifully cooked, well presented, with wines matching our choosen mains. All of it tasted, as well as it looked. Desserts were pricey for what they were with nothing being very artistic or had the wow factor. My partner did say, the sticky toffee pudding was delicious. Our server was a bit untidy, with chipped nail polish, facial piercings and dirty apron - not what you want to see front of house in a restaurant. They were good at their job and very pleasant with a smile. We had coffee overlooking the golf course.

We had a wonderful meal here, celebrating a birthday. There is a delicious choice of fresh local food on the menu and the staff are very friendly. The restaurant itself is nice and cosy with pleasant decor making you feel welcome and relaxed. We will certainly visit again in the future, thank you.

Sunday lunch. Excellent. Beautiful hotel and dining room. Staff all professional and helpful. Couldn’t fault the food. Thank you

Staying at the newly refurbed Marine hotel, a wonderful relaxing stay, and a fabulous dinner at the Lawn. Food and service were excellent

We had the belhaven smoked salmon sharer for starter which was gorgeous and just the right amount for 3. Then all had the roast beef and none of us could fault it. Great presentation and delicious food. All staff very welcoming and helpful too. Great day out!

The "Lawn" (not to be confused with the black bar) is huge with vast windows and decent sea view. Perhaps not that warm in winter and not perfect in the lighting department at night! A few tables have no or is that faulty overhead spots. Chef has some decent food (Lobster & scallops) but by the time they are plated on cold plates and badly served (sides arriving in bowls on the mains plates) no serving spoons untill asked for (one breakfast my cereal spon was a soup spoon). Apart from the excellent Megan & Euan service is from the very young who are still poorly trained and a bit miserable. An "onion tart" was served on top of its oven proof paper and cold plate. It was taken off the bill, I think. At the payment stage you do not get a copy, nor did we on departure! Service @ 10% is added no matter what goes wrong and then the bill has a bottom line for a tip...!!! One night ALL went well! Good scallops followed by good Lobster (not available next night) and a fine Australian Reisling. AVOID all chips, why, who knows, just poor. Breakfasts are a learning curve, avoid the porridge, Muesli is toasted, croissonts run out, scrambled eggs are good but come as a childs portion on a large plate with no garnish or toast. You wont be offered another hot drink, etc etc. As for the wine list, yes over priced, great Reisling, totally undrinkable Proceco & Spumante, bad Romanian pinot Noir. In short Hit & Miss, but at least it was not as bad as the bar service.... ps At least on Christmas Day second lunch service went well, the mince pie was dolls house size, and the individual Christmas puds poor.

.....because if you have the misfortune to be on one of the "dark" tables then expect to be plunged into the gloom on multiple occasions during your dinner. Yes, really, the lighting is out of control. Cheery staff do their best, but the ceiling lights over our table would not stay on. It's ridiculous and needs fixing. As for the food, starter scallops were excellent and the chicken liver parfait was, indeed, parfait, though initially supplied with insufficient toasted brioche to support the generous wedge of pate. The lamb rump main was tender, pink and lovely. Be warned, the "Scottish doughnut" dessert appeared to be based on a bagel with a lot of syrup. Not what I expected and not nice - dense, chewy and hyper-sweet. Extensive drinks list, though fewer wines by the glass. Our choices of the latter turned out to be run of the mill. About £150 for 2 people based on 3 courses, preliminary drink, one small glass of wine and coffee (they don't do petit fours).

I wonder if I’m being picky? Had a drink before dinner - great choice of cocktails. Would have been nice if a small pot of nuts had come with drinks. Starters were average - the crab had quite a lot of sauce so we asked for some bread. In a restaurant of this calibre I think bread should be on the table free of charge - not £5. Both main courses were delicious. We were told when ordering that no extras came with ‘mains’ so necessary to order vegetables as well. By the time vegetables and bread had been added to bill it ended up being a very expensive meal. I found the decor in the restaurant hideous, but the staff were charming and v helpful.

Great service from Richard and team; food great too. With Mum, Aunt and Uncle all in their 80s, our party's needs were excellently provided for. Stunning dining room. Beautiful, freshly cooked food and very attentive service.

We went there as a group of six friends, we were presented with two large tables beside the window and asked which one we wanted after sitting down and ordering drinks at the table we had chosen the head waiter came across with the steam coming out his ears and asked us to move quickly as there were important guest due shortly for the table that we had been wrongly offered. We then ordered pre-dinner drinks, four of the six drinks we ordered were wrong, the waiter did not know if there was a house Wine and had to go ask, we ordered the starters and only five out of six arrived we managed to track down the head waiter again who came across very self-important until he discovered it was his error and they had only instructed the kitchen to make the five starters, 20 minutes later our sixth member of the group got his starter. We then ordered some red wine to go with the meat courses and the young lad who came was very polite but did not know how to open a bottle of wine so I did it for him, roughly an hour later we asked for another bottle of wine from a different waiter also very polite, but amazingly he did not know how to open a bottle of wine either, so again I opened it. During all this the headwaiter would be floating about watching all these disasters unfold without taking either responsibility or an interest. I really think they need to change the staff at the top level and retrain from the bottom up. If it had not been so hilarious it would’ve been a disaster. The food was excellent.

Fabulous food, ambiance and staff! The setting is just lovely, looking over the water and lawns of the hotel. It feels very much like a lovely restaurant and not like a hotel restaurant. Good food. A little different but everything so tasty. There is a children’s menu but staff were happy for our children to share a delicious steak from the main menu. A must for a special occasion or just to visit sometime you want something that little bit special. Totally recommended - we will be back.

We booked for a family Sunday lunch after reading some good reports online. The food was good but be careful as the pricing is not very clear on the menu. Some of the ‘extras’ that are just above the starters on the menu are chargeable over the 2 or 3 course set price. When our bill came we queried why we had extra costs and this was explained then. Despite having the extra charges we had also been charged for 3 courses each which was not correct, an extra dessert and now an inflated service charge. It took 4 attempts for the restaurant staff to get the bill right and we had been overcharged by £50 on that original bill. To make matters worse our account has been charged for both bills now - the incorrect one and the new correct one which means we are now out of pocket £350 until this gets sorted and one gets refunded . Days later we are struggling to get anyone at the hotel to own and resolve this. Food might have been good but poor service would put us off ever returning. Check your bill carefully.

Wonderful meal, such friendly and knowledgeable staff, food was delicious. This is their cackerbean egg in angel hair pasta. Just delicious.

We visited the Lawn for our anniversary and were graciously taken care of by Richard. We were given complimentary glasses of Prosecco to start! We had the haggis bon bons, halibut, steak pie, and the sticky toffee pudding. Amazing food, beautiful decor, and amazing service. A very special night!