Michael Heap (06.09.2017 21:25)
Couldn't fault the service or food and highly recommended for anyone visiting Loch Ness and Inverness. We were sat outside on a beautiful afternoon. Enjoyed our drinks listening to the church bells, soaking up the sunshine and river views. My wife and I both had the salmon and it was fantastic. The rocky road ice cream was the perfect way to finish. Great.
Jan Proudfoot (03.07.2017 14:02)
Chef is excellent so food is delicious. I had duck which can be tough and greasy, but at Contrast it is tender and juicy while still being pink in middle as it should be.
Dana Quinn (19.06.2017 01:22)
Great food! Small portions for the price. Staff were excellent and good came out fast. Would definitely recommend the Hake!
Susan Belford (30.05.2017 02:01)
We decided to visit Contrast on Sunday 28th May as this has been our 'go to' restaurant for a quality Sunday roast for many years. We arrived at 5.45pm and were first in the restaurant for an evening meal. To our dismay, when presented with the menu, we were informed that there was no roast beef left as there had been a rush on the roast at lunchtime with ALL 50 diners choosing the roast beef option! We were shocked at this as this was Bank Holiday weekend and we would have expected that the chef would have anticipated that the restaurant would be busy. We proceeded to order from the a la carte menu as none of the table d'ote options appealed. I chose butternut squash risotto and my husband selected Highland lamb. Service was prompt, attentive and professional ( apart from one waitress's continual use of the awful 'yous' which now seems to be common parlance in the Highlands but which puts my teeth on edge!) and could not be faulted. My risotto arrived ( tasty ....but a fairly small portion) followed promptly by my husband's 'Highland lamb'. For a price of £22.95 we were expecting to see a wonderful rack of lamb chops or such ilk but were horrified when the tiniest portion of food ever served to man arrived! It sat in the middle of the plate, measuring no more than 4cm in diameter. My husband had not picked up on the fact that it was a selection of lamb and that this included a confit as well as lamb's liver. No such luck as a nice chump chop or lamb steak! The vegetable accompaniment was also almost non-existent. My husband, being the non-complaining type, simply accepted that he had made the wrong choice. He had also failed to order side dishes ( at £3 per VERY small serving) of potatoes and seasonal vegetables and so summoned the waitress to rectify the latter problem. However, he could hold his wrath no longer when he took his first mouthful. The confit was completely over-salted, dry and completely devoid of any linkage to the Highland lamb we have tasted in the past. He duly complained to the waitress ( who tried to tell us it was all locally sourced lamb which was used) about the ridiculous portion size and the supremely inflated cost for what was being served and this was obviously relayed to the restaurant manager who approached us to try to find a solution. She offered to replace the lamb with a partial portion of roast beef (remember.....there was NONE of this left for evening diners) and my husband jumped at this. A small but significantly bigger ( than the lamb) portion of food arrived with 3/4 of a slice of roast beef and the usual roast beef trimmings of Yorkshire pudding etc. My husband enjoyed this as it was tasty but stated that it was obviously all a reheat from lunch as it was fairly crisp around the edges. We ordered coffee and requested the bill. We were shocked to see that we had been charged full price for the roast beef as well as the cost of the side dishes which had been ordered for the lamb ( these having sat for a good ten minutes between the lamb being removed and the roast beef arriving!). The restaurant manager came to take payment ( we had run out of energy and decided not to question the bill) and realised we had been charged full price. She decided to take off the cost of my double slimline topic and my husband's bottle of beer ( £7 in total). This was appreciated but we truly feel that we should NOT have been charged for the roast beef for our inconvenience. The restaurant manager told us that a new chef was in post and that he had introduced a new menu. Well........final comments from some regular clients of many years..........time to have a rethink! The menu isn't working! It is over-priced and over-fussy and will never attract repeat clientele. A restaurant like this should never run out of the Sunday staple of roast beef! We WILL return as we have enjoyed many fine meals in Contrast in the past ......but things will have to have improved significantly or we will forever delete our 'go to' restaurant from our dining options in the future. Such a shame!
Heather Fraser (12.06.2016 21:51)
I have given this restaurant 2 stars as the food was very nice, however, the same cannot be said about the service! After our main course arrived we were not approached and asked if everything was alright with our meal as others at nearby tables were; neither were we offered any condiments. As a result my husband struggled through his steak with a blunt steak knife! Had the waitress been more visible we would have tried to get her attention.
After our main course our table was messy with crumbs but no attempt to 'crumb down' was made.
The sticky toffee pudding was lovely but could have benefited from a slightly larger than miniscule amount of ice cream.
After paying the bill and getting up to leave our waitress was right over. After saying 'was everything alright with the bill', it was clear she was only interested in whether we had left a tip as she ignored the items needing cleared away on the table, lifted the bill folder, and within a few steps for all to see, was opening it and checking for her unearned reward!
