Symposium Coffee House - Aberdeenshire

The staff at this restaurant were fantastic, but unfortunately, the food quality was disappointing. The Canadian pancakes were cold, the streaky bacon was undercooked, and the crispy bacon bagel was not crispy at all. The bacon had a strange smell. The cappuccinos were more like milky coffee with no froth. Paying £20 for inedible food was not worth it, so we sadly won't be coming back.

I recently dined at this restaurant with my husband for lunch, and unfortunately, our experience was greatly affected by the rude behavior of the woman working at the till. It appeared as though she may have been on drugs, as she was dropping money and spilling our coffee. Additionally, our sandwiches were poorly presented. Despite not knowing the woman's name, she had blonde hair tied up in a bun and was wearing glasses. We were not impressed with the service and won't be returning to this establishment.

Four of us went to Ellon Symposium based on hearing a lot of positive reviews, but unfortunately, I cannot agree with them. I ordered a triple deck sandwich, but the bread (a bloomer) was either stale or had the consistency of gluten-free bread, making it inedible in my opinion. I only ended up eating the contents of the sandwich, which were actually quite tasty. Furthermore, the homemade coleslaw was fizzy. My granddaughter ordered pancakes with maple syrup, but the waitress had completely forgotten about it and only brought it out when we were almost done with our meal and only after we reminded her. Unfortunately, the pancakes were also inedible - they were hard and stale. Even though my granddaughter loves pancakes, she could only manage one bite. We all tried it and agreed with her assessment. At the end of our meal, I informed the waitress about our experience. She apologized and claimed that the bloomer bread had been brought fresh that morning and the pancakes were made fresh that morning as well.

Immediately following my order being taken and being told to sit at a table, that particular member of staff promptly left the premises. Subsequently. it was clear that staff training was being undertaken (one on one) but I sensed that all was not well. Customers came and went and it took over half an hour for my order to arrive. I was told that they thought I was with some other customers??!!? . Although apologies were made and I was seated at a table directly in front of the counter throughout, I was not impressed with the experience.

On a recent leisure visit to Peterhead I dropped into the Symposium Coffee House. The good: lovely staff and they serve large flat whites. Almost no other cafe does this. An eight ounce flat white might be the tradition, but it is too small. The crispy bacon bagel was very nice. The not so good: I didn’t enjoy the coffee. I don’t know which blend is being used, but you could do better. The coffee had 6 shots in a 16oz mug. I wonder what size the shot is? At home I use 18g of coffee to 36g of water then top up the rest with steamed full fat milk in a 12oz cup. There was too much water to too little milk, and the milk was semi skimmed. Full fat really is a must to make a decent coffee. I needed four sachets of sugar to make it palatable. Although honey for pancakes was on the menu, none was available. I wondered if the coffee making was poor at this branch so I nipped along toFraserburgh for a comparison. The staff were lovely again, but the coffee wasn’t. It was the same quality as the Peterhead branch. I have come to the conclusion that getting a decent coffee in Peterhead is probably a difficult thing, but have noticed in the other reviews that people really rate the coffee. My first decent flat white was back in Costa Coffee in Aberdeen, where they use full fat milk and a decent blend, with a decent ratio of milk to water.