Exterior

Frequent guest quester Kim has developed a really good nose for finding places that have either slipped from my radar or completely failed to register. Rocca was in the latter camp, so I was very pleased when she suggested it as today’s lunch venue.

Part of the Macdonald Hotel at Holyrood, Rocca has an extensive a la carte selection and a more focussed lunch and pre-theatre menu featuring two courses for £10.95. Upon brief inspection of the latter, we were both more than happy with the choices it offered.

Soup

Kim opened with the poached egg with prosciutto, green beans and hazelnuts then followed with spaghetti putanesca. I chose the wild mushroom soup topped with porcini cream, then the chicken breast with aubergine and Umbrian lentils.

Service was a little off, throughout. When we first arrived, no-one was around then after a period of attentiveness while things were ordered and delivered things became rather distracted and distant. Maybe they just had a lot of different things going on, but service wasn’t quite what it should have been.

Poached egg

I found the space neat and quite stylish in a typical hotel way. One thing that requires attention is the hidden step at the entrance on which both Kim and I tripped as we entered. It needs to be entirely more obvious so a sign would be helpful.

This was where the niggles ended, though, as the food was impressively good. Kim’s starter looked very bonnie and my soup was equally smart. It was a very good dish, seasoned accurately, with the porcini cream providing a good little textural variance.

Pasta

My chicken was another strong dish, with the lentils very nicely prepared. The chicken retained good succulence, which was very pleasing. Kim’s pasta was plentiful and bright.

Chicken

So overall, I thought the food at Rocca was very good. There’s room for improvement on the service, which needs to be more sharply focussed, but it’s somewhere I’d happily return and would encourage you to visit, too.

Scores
Blythe scores Rocca
4/5 for food
4/5 for presentation
3/5 for setting
2.5/5 for service
giving an overall 13.5/20

Today’s questers were: Kim, Blythe

We ate: poached egg with prosciutto and green beans, wild mushroom soup, chicken with lentils, spaghetti putanesca

We drank: water, espresso

We wore: pink cardigan; www.tieclub.co.uk tie

Total bill: £24.21