Richard B.
Yelp
First a bit of background: back in 1994 when we first came to the area it was called 'Koggs' and was privately owned. It was a nice cosy place with good food and a decent choice of wines, and it also functioned as a bar for non-diners, though that was a lesser part of the business. Then after a few years the owners sold up to a brewery which gave it a 'makeover' to boost its bar side, renaming it The Old Mill, and destroyed a little of its cosiness in the process. It soon closed by this time the 'Laird and Dog', a stone's throw across the river bridge, had become the better place to go. For a number of years various planning applications appeared seeking to demolish the building entirely and build unsightly blocks of flats on the site, which would have destroyed the essential riverside character of Lasswade. None of these came to anything, and the building sat and quietly rotted.
Then to everyone's delight a new planning application was filed to renovate the building as a bar & restaurant, retaining the historic and distinctive exterior intact. This duly opened its doors for the first time on 6 July and very nearly succumbed the next day to the extraordinary floods that were experienced over a wide area. But they survived that and we eventually were able to try it three weeks after it opened.
The interior has been completely revamped with a new layout which makes better use of the space and gives good access to the terrace that overlooks the river their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/thepapermilllasswade has plenty of pictures to show what it's like (and of the very swollen river!). Still very new, and even after three weeks the smell of fresh paint was noticeable. A lot of bare wood nice dark wood floors and sturdy dark wood tables to match, complemented by plain whitewashed brick walls. Alas, all these hard surfaces reflect sound strongly and it was terribly noisy. Although our table was as far as we could be from the bar area (where a lot of the noise is generated including loud so-called music), it was still at a conversation killing level. Carpets and table cloths are definitely needed to soak up some of the sound. Certainly not a place to come for a romantic dinner à deux.
The menu has plenty of tempting options and claims to be all local produce, which I can believe. My starter of local shellfish ravioli in a langoustine bisque was very tasty, though bore no recognisable resemblance to ravioli, being a large seafood dumpling clad in a rather eggy substance that bore only a very fleeting resemblance to pasta nevertheless it was very nice, simply the description was somewhat off target. I followed this with duck en croute, others in our party had sea bass or pork belly all seemed pleased with their choices.
Alas, the service would make even Basil Fawlty blush all the serving staff seem to be about 16 y.o. with absolutely no training, very slow and completely clueless. There seemed to be no overall supervision to ensure that orders were taken promptly or to follow up with prompt delivery, or to see that one had everything required etc. It was all so slow that we declined both the dessert menu (so I can't comment on that) and coffee, retiring to our friends' house to have our coffee there. It had taken two hours from first arrival to getting to the end of our main course.
I hope that these are just teething troubles that can be overcome, as the food is very promising. But the terrible service and the shocking noise levels require action. We shall certainly try it again, but not too soon to give it time to improve in its present state I can only rise to three stars for it.
