Enjoyed experiencing this sustainable friendly restaurant. Delicious food, friendly service. Take a jumper/ jacket in winter months-on the cool side when we visited although fire was on. Don’t let this stop you-Worth a try!
Great experience, with enthusiastic and attentive staff. Fantastic food and an exciting location and company ethos! The Autumn Feating Session was amazing and I don't think I've ever seen such happy staff doing a great job. They've got a lot of passion and it seeps through.
We had such an amazing luncheon with Free Company! The dining hall is beautifully appointed and all the staff were so helpful in guiding us through the menu. The dishes and flavours were beautiful, definately one of the highlights of our dining experiences in the UK. Hopefully we can make it back for one of the famous bonfire nights.
Absolutely fantastic meal at The Free Company for our anniversary dinner. Couldn't fault it. The atmosphere was relaxed, the staff were attentive and food was absolutely delicious! Will definitely be back!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ If I could give six stars, I would! I wish I could move here and eat at The Free Company every day. Highlights: - Beautifully curated menu and dining experience - Wonderful selection of dishes - Local produce and top quality ingredients - Friendly and prompt service - An experience that you won't forget From start to finish, the experience was wonderful. The menu is beautifully curated, with a fantastic selection of seasonal dishes showcasing local produce and top-quality ingredients. It’s the kind of menu you want to linger over, choosing a few plates to share and enjoy with friends. We began with soft drinks each one a burst of flavour and creativity. The charcuterie board was excellent, especially the speck, paired with a thoughtful selection of pickles. The Porchetta was a real highlight; as an Italian, I can say it was outstanding, herbs and ingredients used with such skill. Even the Yorkshire pudding, which I’m usually not a fan of, won me over. The hogget was another standout dish, cooked to perfection and absolutely delicious. The service was friendly, attentive, and prompt, adding to the relaxed yet special atmosphere. And the location itself is idyllic, truly a place to savour both food and setting. This is not just a meal, it’s an experience you won’t forget. Wholeheartedly recommended.
A very festive experience! The pork main course was divine! Highly recommend!
The Free Company is unlike any other restaurant you will ever go to. It is a family business, run by two brothers, set on a rural farm near Balerno. It is housed in several farm buildings which have been sympathetically restored by them with great charm. There is a bar for pre-dinner drinks and their delicious nibbles, or if the weather is nice you can sit outside in the lovely cobbled courtyard. The buildings are heated by log-burning stoves which create a lovely feel and there's even a piano in the bar should you feel like a sing-song! You are made to feel welcome the moment you arrive. Everything on the menu is sustainably grown and reared by the family on the farm or locally sourced and of course everything is organic. The dining room/barn has beautiful installations of flowers hanging from old metal cart wheels. Again the flowers are all grown locally and I gather are mostly picked from the hedgerows on the farm. Even the lovely long tables and benches are made locally. The food is absolutely delicious and has been totally different every time I have been. I like their system of 'paying what you feel it is worth' so that younger people who wouldn't maybe be able to afford such a special meal can pay what they can afford. Highly recommended! I gather they do weddings too - what an amazing venue!
Had an amazing dinner at the free company last week, absolutely brilliant place. They came pick us up with a jeep from Balerno high school and took us there, we had canapes and drinks, upon arrivals Angus, one of the founder, greeted us and I thought it was such a friendly homey touch, then after sitting by the fire pit we made our way to the dinner table, a cosy room with a long big table. We sat down close to two other lovely couples and at every course we got explained what we were about to eat. The company operates a pay what you think your meal is worth system and I find it really innovative. It is certainly an experience I would recommend, however it is not a child friendly event as the meal stretches for a while. Get on their mailing list in order to receive info and to book a place as it gets sold out really quickly usually.
We attended a friend's wedding here on Saturday 23 July and we were very impressed with the venue. The outdoor space where the ceremony took place was lovely and very well laid out. Thankfully the rain held out although I understand that there was an option to move the ceremony indoors if it did start raining. The area of the venue we used was split into 4 sections in addition to the outdoor courtyard: a entrance room where guests could leave gifts etc and the order of service could be displaye; a bar area where people could mill around; purchase drinks and stand and chat; a hall that was used as a seating area when food was served; and a disco area with a dancefloor later in the evening and the “loft” area which our friends had set up as a silent disco (extremely good fun by the way and would highly recommend this). The drinks prices were reasonable considering they have a captive audience (less than £6 for a pint of the blonde lager they have on tap which is really nice). Our friends opted to have a street food taco stand and a pizza stand outside the venue instead of a formal sit down meal however the venue put on canapes for after the ceremony and salads to go with the tacos or pizza. All the food provided by the venue was prepared fresh and picked from their own gardens (we actually saw them bring red and yellow beetroot in from the garden that was then used in the salad), because of the freshness the flavours were amazing. I hear the venue is offering a 7 course taster menu in their restaurant which I would love to try some time. Getting to the venue was easy enough, we were stopping in Currie and it was a short simple taxi ride away. Leaving the venue was much more difficult, despite pre-booking a taxi the time to be picked up came and went, the taxi never arrived, chased them and we were told it was about 30 minutes longer… still no taxi turned up. Thankfully a very kind and helpful person offered us a lift as she was heading into Edinburgh anyway. The moral of the story, have a back up plan taxi wise as it's not an easy place to get away from at night. Possibly one of the best things about the venue are the volunteers / employees. They worked so hard to make sure everyone's day was the best it could be. I especially want to give a shout out to Havana (who we thought looked like Halle Berry which she took as the compliment it was meant to be). She was always smiling, always happy to help and possibly one of the most customer service centric people I’ve ever come across. This woman is worth every penny to an employer like The Free Company. Once the event had come to an end and most people had left (we were sitting outside waiting for the missing taxi) she sat down with us to chat, we couldn’t believe that she was relatively new there, if someone had asked me beforehand I’d have said she'd worked there for ages. We were so impressed when she told us that most days she works as a volunteer picking the fruit and veg from the fields before then working a few evenings in the restaurant and staffing the events that are booked. To The Free Company, if you can help it, never let this woman go.
A unique dining experience that attracts fab company-the sustainable practices and produce from the farm made for a delightful winter menu in an amazing setting. Really well organised and a slick operation from start to finish. Notoriously difficult to get a reservation - so you know its good.
The Free Company is located at The Free Company, Balerno, Midlothian, Edinburgh EH14 7HZ, UK
You can contact The Free Company at +44 7973 448502
You can find directions to The Free Company by following this map link