Quote Originally Posted by McClef View Post
No dress code, kilted or otherwise is listed on the page regarding its afternoon teas.Nor can I find one listed on the Scotsman Hotel official website.There are no kilt police, not even a flashes division.
The only hotel in Scotland I can recall with a dress code was Crieff Hydro which used to ask guests to wear a lounge suit to dinner back in the seventies but even they seem to have abandoned any such pretext of gentility. Nowadays I don't believe any hotels even presume to dictate in such a way to their guests. Business is tough enough without putting people off in that way.
The general rule is that the pricier the place (more stars in other words) the more likely you are to run into the kind of old farts with plenty of disposable income and who still dress like their grandparents and expect everyone else to do the same. In other words if you really must go to these kind of places then you might be made to feel uncomfortable if you do not go along with them.
My advice is to find somewhere else where you are going to feel more relaxed and comfortable and, as a result, enjoy the experience much more. And as an added bonus you will probably find the sandwiches and scones incomparably better than the rock-hard scones and sandwiches curling up at the edges that most such pretentious places serve up. They rely on the punters being either too polite or too over-awed to complain.
The best tea and scones I have enjoyed recently were at Dobbies garden centre near Livingston.