Café Grande

It had been a while since I had gone out for brunch, so a full brunch was what I was after for a catch up with a couple of friends. I spied that Café Grande seemed to have a very reasonably priced full Scottish brunch (and the vege version too), which includes a small orange juice and tea or small coffee. If you are wanting at least one drink, the full brunch works out cheaper than the various egg dishes on the menu.
So, it was 1 full Scottish brunch for the bloke and 2 vege brunches for the ladies. They were devoured and thoroughly enjoyed by all.
Café Grande definitely has more of a restaurant feel, than a daytime café feel to it and as others have commented, it felt like there were too many tables. Even after booking in advance, the 3 of us were crammed on to a tiny table that looked like it would be better suited for 2.
I would definitely go back for the vege brunch and would be keen to try dinner there also, as the menu looks great.

I had a pretty similar experience in here as others, finding the food to be fine but a bit meh.
Redeeming and making it worthy of the fourth star were the prices and the staff.
Our panini with salad were each £4.00, with a side of chips (referred to as fries but definitely chips, from a bag) for an extra £1.00. Sitting down in Bruntsfield often costs much more than this so thumbs up from me.
The staff were stellar. We were two girls with buggies showing up at the height of the lunch hour and they happily accommodated us, sympathetically providing me with a high chair when they saw Baby Unilocal trying to eat my lunch. They were also very complimentary of the babies when we left, which is always going to win points.
It’s hard to find decent places to eat when you’re out and about with a buggy as places naturally want to fit in as many tables as possible, so it’s nice to find somewhere which will accommodate with a genuine smile.

Nice small café. It is a good place for alcoholic /​non alcoholic drinks if you do not want to go to bars. Laid back with cool barman and waitress. We ordered a platter of seafood to share after dinner just to nibble on with our drinks. The food is nothing to shout about but we came here due to the cosiness of this place and the fact that we can talk to our friends without shouting. Prices are definitely reasonable and good value.

Having visited a few of the Bruntsfield cafes already I visited Café Grande for the first time last week for lunch. The staff were very pleasant & accommodating for a last-​minute brunch request! The eggs Benedict was beautifully presented & apparently tasted great too. The lunch menu has a good balance from light lunch options to heartier meals. The pulled pork burger was delicious — with a generous amount of meat & fresh salad. Looking forward to returning perhaps trying some of the cheesecake that others have raved about!

This spot’s pleasant enough; as a few here have said, it’s far from mind-​meltingly fabulous, but it must be doing something right to remain so busy (as it was) when there are so many other cafes and bars in the area.
I think they must have finally updated the menu since Jenny L’s review because one can now choose to have one’s Eggs Benedict with spinach, ham, bacon or — for a wee bit extra — smoked salmon. My friend and I went for the classic and we were both delighted with the result. The muffin was toasted just enough to make it crispy without spoiling the fluffiness and the eggs were wonderfully hot (although so was the plate: yowchio! Warn me next time, please, waitress… I didn’t spot your gloves until too late!)
But — oh dear, Café Grande — there goes a star. There was no drinks menu in sight so we’re still not entirely sure if a range of teas was available. The tea, once ordered, took a goodly while to arrive and we had to ask for extra sugar when it did, since there was only one sachet each.
And — whoops — another. It’s not a small place as such, but it feels a bit like they’ve tried to fit too many people in and so it’s kind of cramped. I had to press myself in against the counter while paying so that people could get past and the lady on the till barely said a word to me and swapped over with someone else halfway through taking my payment! Pretty rude, I thought…
So, nice enough for an impromptu brunch with a friend but not somewhere I’d necessarily make plans to go to.

I’ve had lunch in Café Grande and its been ok. Not wow, not bad but ok.
What it does wow me with is the cheesecake. Specifically multiple varieties of gluten free cheesecake! No one sells gluten free cheesecake. At least no one did till I ended up at Café Grande whilst I was flat hunting. Last time I had white chocolate and raspberry and it was lovely — creamy, not too overpowering and lovely scrumptious raspberries and sauce. The Banoffee Pie rocks too — lovely banana, caramelly goodness! Just don’t put it in the fridge if you take it away as the base goes pretty hard (its gf biscuit base remember!).
I love having a choice and there I’ve yet to try the baileys cheesecake but its on the list!
Service is good. It can be busy so it can be hard to get a seat at times but I sometimes just go to get my goodies to take out.
So, I like Café Grande — I love it for the cheesecake and I’m quite tempted to see how it fairs for dinner one night :-)

I came here for pre festival meal. My green Thai curry was delicious, the fruit crumble was pretty average though. Add a glass of Rose and the whole meal came to about 18 quid. Umm, to be honest I’ve had better meals…

Popped in for breakfast having been in for an evening meal a few times. Always a safe bet when my imagination or energy to walk further afield is running low. Scrambled eggs with salmon not too shabby and the coffees hot. It’s always pretty busy, though I get the feeling that an empty café in Bruntsfield would have to be truly awful.

I went here today feeling a bit meh. I was going to meet some clients, and they had chosen it — and I kept thinking of all the other groovy places in the area that we could have gone to instead. Café Grande just seems a bit old school, and the menu was all burgers and paninis…
But, in fact, i did have a pretty good lunch. The fishcake was small but tasty, with chips and a little salad — and the cheeseplate afterwards was good, with a choice of Scottish cheeses. Various desserts round the table looked decent too — the banoffee pie got a rave review.
Other lunch choices weren’t quite as good — the soup and sandwich in particular seemed a bit dull and «like something you’d make at home», while the beanburger arrived looking forlorn on a plain bun.
So — a nice enough lunch if you’re in the area, but I wouldn’t go out of my way.

During my Bruntsfield years this place was bit of a god send for recovery food.
Pancakes, bacon & maple syrup = winner
Nachos = obviously a winner
Meal of the day= hot or miss but more hit than miss
Add to that a virgin mary and a pot of earl grey and I was well on way to being back in the world of the living. If I was going to criticise this place its that the staff can be a bit snippy at weekends as they are clearly run off their feet and have no space to move.
They fairly cram in the tables and if the mothers and babies brigade are in avoid at all costs! The noise is bloody awful!
Overall though its a main stay as Cheryl says of the area and always a safe bet in global times of uncertainity in a beleguered world of poverty and war!!! But really its nae bad!
Jd = happy man!

Not bad, not great, but not bad. I stopped by here for a spot of Sunday brunch with a good friend. I walked past many tasty looking cafes to get here, so had high hopes that it would be top notch.
Inside, it’s all dark wood, rickety furniture and it has charm. It was busy, so it must be popular. The menu wasn’t hugely extensive and felt like it hadn’t been updated in a good 5 years or so. This isn’t necesarily a bad thing. But when I saw the ‘full breakfasts’ being brought to other tables they reminded me more of traditional Scottish greasy-​spoon fare than the best of the best brunch standards. So, I went for the Eggs Benedict.
Brunch, espeically after a hard night partying with some of the best Unilocalers in town the night before, is sacred to me. It should soothe your hungry tummy, calm your slightly sore head, and warm the cockles of your soul. The eggs benedict were nice enough but quite bland. And they weren’t served with bacon, they were served with wafer-​thin slices of smoked ham. A bit of a disappointment.
Also, it didn’t help that we were sitting near-​ish the front door, and once or twice a waitress stood holding it open when talking to customers, lettings all the freezing cold air in, and cooling down my eggs a lot. The result was one tasty egg, and one very cold egg. Humpf.
The cakes in the cake stand looked very nice. And I’ve heard there is a great jazz night here, which I must investigate.
But compared to other places I’ve eaten brunch in, this was very average. Although I must give a shout out to the waitresses who were all very friendly and efficient, and really had their eye on every table ensuring we weren’t kept waiting. If it hadn’t been for the cold door = cold egg scenario, maybe I would have been happier.

If you want to love this place, you have to go there in the afternoon for a piece of home-​made chocolate fudge: It’s like christmas in my mouth!
The waiters are very nice and patient.
Breakfast is fine and dinner as well, but I wouldn’t especially recommend them.
Coffee and cake is what I think they are best at!

Café Grande was the first café I ever went to when I first came to Edinburgh. I went with my mum because we were staying in a B&B somewhere near Bruntsfield, and hadn’t quite got our bearings on the city yet, so just stumbled into the first coffee-​serving establishment we found. And we weren’t at all disappointed. My favourite thing about it was the cake. I’m a total sucker for cheesecake. And they had really delicious cheesecake.
I also remember eating some sort of sea food there. Maybe prawns, that were deliciously lemony. But it was a while ago. I’ve been back recently with a friend of mine and had thai fishcakes and was again not disappointed at all. I hear their milkshakes are a bit of let down, but I’m more of a coffee-​drinker, so I don’t really mind.
The inside’s tiny but homely and the service is generally quite prompt, though I think that reviewing service is never completely reliable as people come and go, and every person reacts differently to pressure.

One of the most popular haunts in Bruntsfield by a mile, this wee place oozes character as soon as you set foot in the door.
It opens early til’ late and is always packed with people, old and young, who use this as a meeting place for one thing or another. There is a real sense of community in here and although I am not a local, I liked feeling that I was kind of a part of it. The staff chatted away to me and my other half as we sat sipping a coffee, and we felt right at home.
The food being served around us was simple, fresh and locally produced fare which was very reasonably priced and looked delicious to boot.
I would come back here in a minute, an absolutely great wee café.

Café Grande is a bit of a Bruntsfield institution, having been around the block more than a lot of cafes, and lasted the distance. Their tried and tested formula of laid back eating and drinking, combined with a high quality of edible offerings, and a mix of local regulars, yummy mums (need to find a new way to say this, not keen on this expression for some reason) and of course, students, who are a continual feature of most decent cafes.
Café Grande does that thing that I sometimes think is hard to attain with cafes, where there’s a good cross over from day time establishment, to evening hang out. Some cafes get it really wrong, and end up looking more like a school canteen with the lights turned off, but with the ever helpful aid of candle light, Café Grande sets itself up nicely as a night time venue, with a simple, but tasty menu to match. It feels very European here at times, with the bustle, look and feel of the place, although if you’re planning on arriving at a peak eating or drinking time, get here early, because space can be tight.

This great little café is a real find in the heart of Bruntsfield. I’ve been here only once, but really enjoyed it. I had a piece of cake and a glass of lemonade, and it was very pleasant. They certainly have a great range of food and drink — I was particularly taken with their cake cabinet, which displayed the range of cakes in all their glory. For someone like me that loves cake, this was great.
I’m interested to see that previous reviews speak of occasionally ropey experiences of this place. My first impression was a very good one, and I think I’d need to visit a few more times to form a solid opinion.

I’d heard a lot of amazing things about this place from friends who live nearby, so I had high hopes when I finally got round to trying it out.
I have to say though, I wasn’t exactly blown away. Maybe I’d built it up too much, maybe the memories of how amazing my recent trip to nearby Gourmet Pasta had been were still too fresh, or maybe it was just bang-​average. Either way, it was nothing special.
Being in Brunstfield, it caters for the lunching-​out types, and the food wasn’t bad. It was just a bit boring, if I’m completely honest. There was nothing on the menu that I couldn’t order in one of our student unions, and if I did I wouldn’t be paying quite so much for it.
The evening menu did look a bit more enticing, especially as they claim to only use locally sourced ingredients and the range of dishes to choose form isn’t huge, so you know it’ll always be fresh. But I just don’t know if I could be bothered to go all the way over to Bruntsfield to take the risk. And if I were in this area, I can think of loads of other places nearby that would come above Café Grande on my list.

It’s an establishment of Bruntsfield so you don’t get much more middle class café than this. It’s a buzzing hub of tea and biscuits which is situated slightly above the usual price bracket for this kind of place (well. It is next to Morningside.)
The staff is primarily good-​looking, slightly older waitresses — and there’s not many people I trust more to know about cake than an attractive woman!
Regardless of whether they are or not, the cakes feel homebaked and fresh — I’m a chocolate tart girl myself and Grande doesn’t disappoint! Copius coffee without having to wait makes you want to stay they for hours, chatting amongst the usual posh grannies (and sometimes Dylan Moran looking like a right misery)

I was quite lucky in that I lived opposite Café Grande last year, but I was not so lucky as I didn’t even know it was there! When I finally made it into the café it was towards the end of my time in Bruntsfield, I wish I had known about it sooner.
The menu is great! Every option is mouth-​watering and yummy. Their paninis are great, the bread they use always tastes fresh and tastes healthy (even if dripping in cheese). My brother said his chicken Balmoral was a bit dry, but the cheesecake was amazing.
Furthermore, they have live jazz every weekend. They have a big board with all the details of their sessions and they are always busy. It’s a great wee café!

I have mixed feelings about this place. Had a couple of sketchy experiences a couple of years ago — nothing bad, just a lingering feeling of disappointment — however, the past few times we have dropped by I have been very satisfied with our food and experience.
I generally order one thing there — poached eggs on toast and they are pretty well done. In fact they do their eggs beautifully and runny with no hint of fluffliness and so for a fickle egg loather/​lover like me they are great as that is just how I like them.
Maybe don’t go out of your way to eat here, but if you are in the neighbourhood it’s a solid find.

Café Grande is more than just a café, it is a restaurant and bar as well. The Café is located in the centre of the Bruntsfield area of Edinburgh so it is a handy place to pop into for a bite of food.
Café Grande serves breakfasts, as well as lunch and dinner and they have a menu specially tailored towards children. I ordered their cheese burger for my lunch which was tasty, and came with the standard fries and salad, but it was quite pricey at £7. Their lunch menu includes panini’s, wraps and salads. Café Grande’s evening menu is more impressive with dishes including King prawn Thai green curry and Cajun spiced salmon and prices ranging from £10 to £18.
Café Grande, as the name suggests, specialise in coffees and they have a wide range of drinks available. They serve Illy coffee, which does not taste a treat — the milk in the lattes are burnt and there is almost no foam on their cappuccinos. Café Grande also serves ‘Coffee Cocktails’ which are priced at around £6 and include drinks such as Irish Coffee and Mississippi (Southern Comfort, apricot coffee and whipped cream) which I haven’t been brave enough to try!
Café Grande always has a lively atmosphere inside, especially on a Sunday evening when local Jazz artists perform in the Café.