Walking in to Contrast Brasserie, there are wood tables and chairs and a beautiful wood floor. The staff are wonderful, very helpful in making our selections. Our choice of wine, Sancerre, was excellent. I ordered the scallop appetizer that was good, not great. The scallops were sweet, the sauce also good, but it was a bit overpowering for the scallops. Our mains included the seabass cooked in a tandoori style. The fish was good and flavorful, but the preparation dried the fish and in my opinion, did not enhance the flavor. The fish was accompanied by a combination of truly delicious vegetables-cauliflower, potatoes, broccolini. My wife chose the cod in a light creamy sauce, with gnocchi, pearl onions, peas and small clams. I think her dish was the superior selection. The food quality was first rate. I think the preparation of my dishes missed the mark a bit. It was late and we were tired, so we did not order either dessert or coffee or tea. It is a nice place with a great staff and ambiance. The quality of the food is absolutely superior, the preparation was not to the level of the food. read more

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Fine dining experience, well worth the time. Kudos to the Chef and crew for the exquisite meal. We four had three starters (get the duck pate sandwich) and four entrees: venison. Filet, rib eye, and risotto. All were delicious. We especially liked the rolls that were served while we waited for our meal. read more

Contrast Brasserie - Champagne - Seafood Near Me - Inverness, HLD

Beautiful place and excellent food, we didn't see Nessie that night. But the dining experience was much better than a sighting.

Delicious food, excellent service, beautiful place. All made for a nice dining experience. I felt underdressed but nobody seemed to mind. Had the pork belly and a rioja. read more

This is an awesome restaurant featuring lovely ambience, fine wines, aged meats, and accommodation for dietary options. I had the vegetarian dragon roll, the best vegetarian plate I've ever had, and my wife had the Bao pork buns and butter chicken, all with wonderful presentation and delicious. So glad we found the restaurant and were able to enjoy the wonderful dining experience! read more

Contrast Brasserie - Vegetarian Dragon Roll - Seafood Near Me - Inverness, HLD

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Absolutely downhill. Served me a puck of a ribeye for for 35 quid. Service staff nice. Food abomination for those prices. Won't last. Prey on tourists. Can't continue. read more

We tried Contrast the other day for a pre-theatre meal after work. I like to go for a pre-theatre the first time I go somewhere pricey and, if I like it enough go back for a la carte. The dining room is decorated nicely and feels cosy & festive. The pre-theatre menu had a good selection & we both had chicken liver parfait to start. The apricots (?) on top were nice and the parfait was fine but could have been improved with some thyme or something because it was a bit plain. For main course we had seabream and pork and, again, we agreed that they were plain and lacking in seasoning. Desserts (toffee sundae and chocolate melting pud) were lovely. The service was friendly and its a shame that the food was mediocre. Maybe it was a one-off, we'll try again sometime but the pre-theatre didn't encourage me to pay a la carte prices. read more

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The chocolate fondant was literally the most amazing chocolate dessert of my life! The coffees were good but common. Service was extremely good! We would have ordered a whole meal but found this place after we had just finished a whole meal! read more

Contrast Brasserie - Chocolate fondant - Seafood Near Me - Inverness, HLD

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Enjoyed a lunch, dinner and drinks! Food choices were excellent with interesting Asian fusion as well as seafood and beef. Great gin selection at a reasonable price. Recommend a meal or drinks anytime! read more

Great hamburgers. Cooked perfectly with plenty of fixings. Excellent homemade salsa. Steak and risotto also really good. The sweet potato soup was rich and delicious. Great ale as well. Breakfast was much overrated. Poached eggs were vinegar flavored. read more

While in Inverness, we were looking for somewhere along the Loch for a nice dinner & Contrast Brasserie was recommended by Frommers - and this time they got it right! In fact, it was so delish that we ate here both nights we were in Inverness Modern, clean lines, textured tables and chairs - our eyes were the first to feast for the evening * Starters * Sourdough, mushroom, & fried poached egg w/ thyme foam. Perfectly poached egg w/ tender shrooms. Prawns were spicy but flavorful spicy & not hot spicy which suited Dad just fine. * Entrees * Blue cheese risotto. Buttery & pungent - delish! The 1st night also had a fried poached egg and there was a TON of blue cheese. The 2nd night didn't have the egg (boo) and although it was extremely cheesy, there wasn't as much blue cheese. Still extremely tasty but I preferred the 1st night's version Thai inspired sea bass. Rice noodles coriander & veggies w/ tender fish. Chicken w/ fried Cesar dressing. Mom was never really clear on what fried Caesar dressing was but it was yummy - so why question, right? Pork w/ gratlins carrots & currants. Dad liked the crispy gratlins & the sweetness from the currants & how it all enhanced the already yummy pork * Desserts * Sticky Toffee Pudding was incredible. Lots of toffee & the cake was pull apart-sticky - YUM! Strawberries & cream. Sweet as can be strawberries & the creamiest cream Creme brulee flavored w/ blueberry....they had several infused brulees from which to choose & since Mom is a huge fan of the blueberry, this wasn't a hard decision Choc & hazelnut tart. Gooey & hazelnutty read more

Very disappointed with this restaurant. Mediocre service and meh food. We went with very high expectations. Some had even said that it's the best restaurant in Inverness. It did not howevever live up to its reputation. The first sign of trouble was when our hotel concierge called them to make reservations. There was a lot of confusion, the person on the line did not know if they had room, they had to call us back. When we arrived, we were seated, my napkin looked very dirty or stained. We asked for a new one. We were given bread as we browsed the menu but it seemed to take forever for someone to come take our order. People working there kept looking at us and I kept looking back, establishing eye contact to say " we are ready to order". Maybe there was a secret signal or something else i was missing. Someone eventually came. Our appetizers, smoked salmon and goat cheese with tomato compote were OK. The mains, a saefood dish which was supposed to be a mix of clams, mussels, shrimp and Scallops actually consisted of a huge plate of mussels, 3 shrimp, 2 scallops and 1 clam. Taste wise it was meh. I didn't finish my food. My husband had a vegetable noodle stirfry which was slightly better but nothing to rave about. As for the service, i think that the servers really wanted to do a good job but they just did not know how. There was twitchy guy, hovering guy and girl who stayed in the background. She seated us, gave us bread and just stood in the back. Twitchy guy kept almost coming up to our table like he's going to do something but then he would stop and turn around. Hovering guy just stood there watching us, making things a bit uncomfortable. Maybe we ordered the wrong dishes, maybe it was a bad day for them but I really woudn't eat there again nor would I recommend this place. This is supposed to be a high end place, we should have stuck with Chez Roux which I think might actually have the best food and service in Inverness (not that we have tried all restos, see my Chez Roux review). read more

Okay contrast was on ramsay kitchens nightmare (but in a nice twist on a theme, it was due to poor advertising , the food according to gordon was fantastic). I have been twice, either taking advantage of the pre theatre or lunch time deals (£7 or £10). The food is sublime, truly exquisite a nice twist on the modern. In comparison to other inverness restaurants, head and shoulders above. The quality and taste of the food stands out a mile. The general mileu of the place does verge on the pretentious, but never have i felt that this was overwhelming. It is a lovely looking place an d to making it even better we visited with our two year old and (apart from a very rude couple sitting close to us) we were made to feel very welcome. I would highly reccomend this place read more

This morning, I ate the most delicious and deliciously cooked kippers in the brasserie for breakfast. Oh my, they were good. With poached eggs with the yolks still runny and big fishy slabs of goodness sitting alongside them, set off to perfection with a squeeze of lemon. It's not hard to get excited about kippers when they are as good as these. Dinner last night was less astonishing but nonetheless, pretty good. I had steak and chips. The chips were cooked to fat fleshy but crispy perfection. They couldn't have been anything else but just out the fryer. The steak was pretty ok. Taken from a local slaughtered beast apparently, the meat was great. The medium cookedness verged slightly too much towards well-cooked rather than rare but that's pedantry. The service in this place is impeccable. Attentive but not intrusive and unfailingly polite. It's pretty good value for money. And the menu looks really rather luscious. It was only that I'd been fantasising about steak all day so had to take the boring option. But the 7 hour roasted lamb sounded pretty fine too. Next time you're in Inverness, it's well worth checking out. Directly over the river from the Eden Court theatre, you could combine the two for a fine evening's entertainment. read more

This is the probably single most overpriced restaurant for the poorest quality dining experience as you will find--not only in Inverness, but perhaps globally. Do not expect to be treated with attention if you are not staying at the hotel. For breakfast, in particular, you can pay twice as much for an inferior continental as you might pay for other restaurants on the same street. Skip Contrast altogether. If you must eat there, give it its namesake, and contrast it with other dining opportunities. read more

This was one of the most incredible, and delightful burgers my wife and I've ever had; ruined by the worst service of any restaurant I've been in, world-wide. The waitress who seated us was very nice until, after a long day on a mini-bus, around 8:45 pm, my wife and I indicated we were only going to have water "to start," at which point she said only "well I'll just take this" and walked away with the wine menu. I actually wanted a bit of scotch, but had to wait over 10 minutes for another person to appear. We placed our order for dinner based on what we hoped would be quick, price was not a concern. Once the order was placed, another 10 minutes lapsed at minimum before a few very tasty slices of bread were brought over. In the interim, a group of four semi- formally dressed adults came in, immediately ordered appetizers, wine, drinks, etc. As we waited for the bread, no less than three people waited on that one table, including our waitress who seemed to be far too busy to realize we also wanted an appetizer and I wanted a scotch. Finally getting her attention, we decided to skip the appetizer but I did ask for the scotch "bible" as I was told it was called. She was back in less than a minute, as was the drink once ordered. However, thereafter, and through the end of the meal, we watched the four top next to us in the room receive multiple people every few minutes attending to them by refilling drinks (ours never were or even asked about) and asking how their meal was (we weren't asked until my wife finally stopped her to ask for our check as she hadn't been back to us at any point). I would go back for the food were it not for the atrocious and seemingly "purchase-based" service of the staff. Sadly, a horrible first experience with dining in Inverness. read more

This was the best meal we've had outside of Edinburgh in Scotland, and, frankly, an excellent meal overall. We had scallops for our starter--flavorful, but still light and the garbonzo beans were an interesting touch! A nod to Indian red curry without being too literal. And we tried the Salmon and the ribeye for our mains--both were very good. Service was lovely--and not in the overused British sense of the word--our servers were friendly, prompt and efficient. We consumed vast quantities of water after a day of exploring and they did an admirable job of keeping up. Having the cold water of the River Ness rushing by may have also had something to do with our water intake. It does look spectacularly refreshing! Please also note that they don't mind you turning up in your sweater and jeans either. We just changed out of our sneakers and off we went--and we were right at home. Special mention to the piano player/singer in the next door Piano Bar. He provided entertainment wile we waited a few minutes to be seated. Overall a fantastic experience! read more

Very nice meal at a very nice location overlooking the Ness. Sunday Roast is reasonably priced (£16 for 2 courses). We had a potato truffle velouté soup and the rarebit as starters; the soup was excellent. Main courses were roast pork, fish pie, braised beef shin and a vegetarian rice/daal/polenta dish, all excellent. A very extensive whiskey list although one of the two we ordered was not available, so it's hard to know how realistic the list is. If we were staying longer we'd go again. read more