The Balavoulin - Highland

Tried this place for the first time after they were highlighted as a new sponsor of the local football club, then having checked them out online saw that they 'd recently had a refit, that reviews were generally positive, so thought it worth a visit. A friendly welcome on arrival, nice cosy on a cold damp morning with a wood burner stove on the go. Chose the full breakfast, although didn 't feel that it quite stands up to the 'full ' description as missing link sausage, haggis mushrooms, although did include a glass of juice for the £11.95 price. As I can 't eat beans, asked if I could have an additional egg instead, with one on a breakfast never being enough anyway in my opinion. Food came quite quickly, what was served eggs, bacon, lorne sausage, black pudding, tomato toast was decent enough, but nothing out of the ordinary. When it came to paying the bill, I asked about the discount for football club supporters that had been mentioned over the tannoy at the last game, but was told that it wasn 't being offered. Discovered then that I 'd been charged £1.50 extra for the second egg, which wasn 't mentioned when I ordered, isn 't stated on the menu. So effectively £13.45 for a medium breakfast, which to me isn 't great value, with tea coffee extra on top of that. So whilst the overall experience was fine, with me being a first time customer, attracted by the association with the football club, the so so questionable value for money means that an opportunity was missed to secure both my future repeat custom, positive recommendation to others.

Arrived for lunch and there was no soup or baked potatoes. Got a coronation chicken baguette and out came a lukewarm half toasted baguette with barely and chicken, all sauce. My partner ordered a chicken tikka sandwich and there was plenty chicken but didn’t taste great. A real shame because it looked like a cosy little cafe with great ambiance. I’m not sure if the poor food and limited menu was because we came here about 2pm but it was substandard. The waitresses seemed really nice and attentive throughout.

Excellent friendly local place serving tasty food. I've always found the staff to be super accommodating and friendly.

Excellent food. The coronation chicken panini was very nice. The fries were great and a good portion size. Side salad had a nice dressing. Will definitely be back if passing through the area again.

We’ve eaten in most of the cafes and restaurants in Aviemore over the year and we absolutely loved the coffee pot. The food was great, very tasty, homely and the price very reasonable. We took home some home bakes which were delicious (brownies, yum). As others have commented the service is extremely friendly and welcoming which is probably the reason why the place was full with locals and visitors. We’d defo come back and recommend the coffee pot.