The Station Hotel

Popped in for a bar meal. Very friendly welcome and cheerful staff.. Food was well cooked and nicely presented. Decor is excellent. Perhaps they could be a little more generous with the (green) vegetables.

The station hotel is lovely, no expense has been spared on it and the rooms and public areas are easily on par with the likes of Gleneagles. The furnishings and bathrooms in the rooms are also of a very high standard. The majority of the hotel is a renovated old derelict building however a small annex has been put out the back of the hotel and this annex is where the entrance to 4 of the rooms, including suites and the 2 bedroom family room. So you do leave the rear of the hotel to access these rooms but the area is very quiet and safe so it is not an issue. Rothes as a place is a ghost town, there’s nothing in it and it is clear having spent most of our weekend at the hotel eating and drinking in the evenings that the locals don’t use it even as a place to come for a drink. It’s very much all residents that you will encounter during your stay. Pros and Cons Pros…. It’s a lovely hotel inside and everything to a very high standard. Rooms are designed to a high standard and very modern and new feeling. The drinks selection is very good with one of the most impressive whiskey collections you will find anywhere in Scotland. The whiskey menu has hundreds of whiskey choice. Breakfast is very nice and fresh cooked. Cons…. It lacks any atmosphere in the bar and restaurant areas! On a Friday night we were the only people in Toots Bistro Bar, it pretty much stayed that way all evening give or take 1 or 2 people. The locals don’t use the place so there’s no local feel to it. Saturday evening was slightly better but again it’s souless. We were going to move to the nice whiskey lounge after dinner on Friday however at 8pm on a Friday night the staff started to clean the Brass in the whiskey lounge making the place stink of Brasso, so we couldn’t sit there due to the smell so moved back into toots bar!! Food is OK…what they are trying to deliver especially in the main restaurant is way over the top and for the price and how little you get to eat on the plate it’s not worth the £35 for the 2 course. Only 3 choices of starter and Main and We were all left hungry after our meal. Also I don’t understand the handing you the menus which is in a sealed envelope…everyone gets one and it’s a little card. A bit over the top and a waste of paper. We got another envelope handed to us to open for desert and with only the 3 desert options we were able to remember from the reading the menus before dinner. It was all A bit pretentious to be honest. And we all passed on desert as for the money for the desert we were all thinking that if the main course portion was anything to go by then the desert would be tiny! We opted for a whiskey in the bar instead! Toots Bistro again very limited choice made even less by the fact they didn’t have any Steaks on a Friday night!!!! It’s also very small portions for the price. The food we had was very nice though and couldn’t complain at the taste. The only criticism of the room I would have is that there is the most ann

Stayed here on numerous occasions on business trips and usually very good but this last stay was not so great , my room was far too hot so had to open the window and all I could hear was the kitchen extraction blowing , the television remote didn't work half the time and the shower was either boiling hot or freezing cold. Went for breakfast in the morning and now you don't eat in the restaurant you have to eat in the bar ! 4* hotel and you eat in the bar , not very comfortable, ordered a cooked breakfast with white toast . No black pudding or haggis or potato scone , just asked for sausage, bacon with scrambled eggs , mushroom, tomato and some beans. I got 1 extremely small slice of toast with the tiniest piece of butter, I rasher 1 sausage a tablespoon of scrambled egg 1 mushroom and half a tomato, it's the first time I have left hungry after breakfast, no marmalade or jam , it was pretty poor for the price of the hotel especially a 4* . I travel a lot in the area and must say it's the poorest breakfast I've had anywhere in Speyside.