Update 27-11-2007: To cope with the smoking ban, the Boisdale has now provided a purpose-built Smoking Terrace for Cigar smokers, so cigar aficionados need not go without. It also solves the problem for those who do not want to experience others' smoke while they are eating.

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The Boisdale is a restuarant that arouses extraordinary passions: either you'll love it or you'll hate it.

The theme is Scottish and masculine: the decor of the multi-roomed interior is dark, with lots of tartan and dark polished wood - rather like a gentlemen's club.

The menu is Scottish and masculine too: lots of game, offal, well-hung Aberdeen Angus steaks, Hebridean shellfish, wild salmon and, of course, haggis.

The bar menu is extraordinary by any standards: 200 wines, 200 whiskies (nearly 150 single malts), a huge choice of cocktails and over 100 varieties of Cuban cigar. There's a regular Jazz band too, which has become something of a feature here (see the web-site for listings).

All this choice comes at a cost: expect dinner with wine to cost around £50 a head. But start on the cocktails, malt whiskies and cigars and, well, the sky's the limit. 12.5% service charge is added, and a charge for the Jazz (£3.95 if you are already there, £10 if you arrive after 10pm). You can spend £100 per person without really trying, and an awful lot more if you do. (An article on their web-site suggests that bills of £1,000 per person have been known...)

Whether or not all this is up your street is up to you. They have, to be fair, begun including vegetarian items on the menu (not the case when I was first taken there) and you could keep costs down by ordering from the fixed-price menus, or even having a sandwich or burger at the bar. But I'm not a fan of drifting clouds of cigar smoke while I eat, nor of Jazz (which I actually like, but in a jazz club, not in a restaurant).

Some of my male dining companions thought all this was fabulous, however, and would doubtless award it five stars - and there seemed to be plenty of other punters who agreed with them. The steaks, whiskies and cigars all came in for huge praise.

Finally, a word on the service. I've found it extraordinarily variable: from the cloyingly sycophantic, through the decent and professional to the aggressively rude.

And, for the record, I have always been taken there with someone else was paying the bill...

I been there recently there and I had a fantastic time- great food and wonderful cigars.
The band that was palying was funa dn people started dancing which i have been told was one of the first times taht this had happened., For me Boisdale is a clear thumbs up ;)