Merlin - Stirling

We stayed in Drymen a week and sampled most of the restaurants. The Merlin was the only one we made a point of returning to. They were two of the most delicious and best value meals I have had in a long while. The first visit we both had the four-course Taste of Scotland menu, including the best Cullen Skink I 've ever had as a starter and a haggis/neaps/tatties tower as a second starter. Then I selected what was meant to be a six-ounce Filet steak as my main, but it as at least eight if not ten ounces, prepared to perfection. Then dessert was a a generous portion of delicious cheese cake. We could not have eaten it all but for the fact it was too delicious to leave behind! The second time we had the three course menu and it did not reduce our esteem for this establishment in the least. The restaurant is a quaint old Scottish room and the service was excellent. The hotel seems to cater to the older bus tour crowd, but that should not diminish your visit in the least.

The restaurant is a characterful, old place with much charm and the food matched! Plenty of local ingredients and dishes with nice twists. The portions were a good size: filling but not greedy oversized quantities that you get in some places, but not petite nouveau cuisine portions either. We ate from the set menu, at £20 for 3 courses and coffee, but I'd have liked to have combined both as they both had dishes that were very tempting. The service was very good friendly yet professional if a little slow, but possibly this was because there was a highland dancing event on in another area (inaudible from the restaurant) so staff were probably diverted there.

Went to have afternoon tea with a few friends, very disappointed at the very poor level of service, the serving waiter was doing his best but seemed over awed, the manager arrived to help frankly he should have stayed in the background, our group was made to feel unwanted and anxious. Trying to get the bill paid was a nightmare with the staff and the manager failing to work out the workings of the till. Our offer to simply leave the money for them to sort the till later was deemed unacceptable, we were forced to wait whilst the process was sorted out. Quite a poor experience, really concerned as this place is in the centre of the local tourist area. One wonders , given that very poor service was offered to locals, what tourists must think. Lovely location, great area just needs to upgrade manager and staff traing.

My partner and I were recently enjoying a short break in drymen and wanted to find somewhere to eat on the 1st night, we liked the look of the menu displayed just outside the winnock hotels entrance so decided to dine there. When we sat down we were quite promptly approached by a waitress who asked what our room number was we told her we weren't staying there but had just come for a meal she looked horrified, stuttered then rushed away, a little while later another waitress came over asked if we wanted drinks and gave us a menu, when we took a look we realised it was a completely different menu to what we'd seen previously which didn't have much of an appetising selection and was more than twice the price, we already had our drinks so resolved to stay thinking the foods bound to be amazing at those prices, when it arrived we were a little aghast at the tiny portion,(I have seen much bigger childrens servings in restaurants)plus there was no apple sauce for my partners pork, and poor presentation then on tasting it was mediocre at best, very average and pretty bland. We left feeling angry at being totally ripped off and hungry, would of been better going to a wetherspoons the food would have been tastier, the service better and at least we would have left there full!!!!

Popped in on Monday evening and ordered the Scottish menu,this was absolutely fantastic everything was cooked to perfection.well done