Lavendra Indian — Restaurant in Sydney

Smile and kindness is the biggest asset you can have. Saturday night Life lesson! What an amazing moment!! Like any typical Saturday when I don’t have a cricket match, I was busy working on my laptop and going deep into the world of the Internet searching from the history of New York to real estate prices. I was looking at the computer screen for quite a few hours and in the evening I decided for a change let’s go out and have some good Indian dinner at a fancy restaurant. There was one restaurant called Zinger Taj that I wanted to try for a long time, so I got out of my place, got on a train and walked straight to Zinger Taj excited to try Patiala Baingan (Eggplant- and yes mummy I started eating Baingan 🙂 ) but even after waiting for quite some time I couldn’t get a seat as it was a busy Saturday night. So, disappointed with an empty stomach and heart I started walking towards another restaurant called "Lavendra by the Grace of India" (the name of this restaurant has a very interesting story- when the owner of this restaurant moved to the suburb called the Lavender Bay, he always used to pronounce it wrong with Lavendra- and his son came up with this unique name called Lavendra which sounds like a name of an Indian boy), after reaching Lavendra restaurant, I walked straight into with lots disappointment, sadness, and a hungry stomach but WITH A HEART FULL OF HOPE AND HAPPINESS ON MY FACE, I treated the owner with a smile and did a handshake with him. I told hello my name is Vishal and asked how are you. I asked table for one, but the waiter told me they are completely booked for the night and there was nothing they can do. But the owner was so generous he asked me if I can sit outside with a group of people, I was like I don’t mind. And when I went out, it was the father of the owner of a restaurant who was having dinner with 3 of his friends on a very small table with hardly any seat for a fifth person. But when you have space in your heart it doesn’t matter if you have space in the universe. With all their heart, they shared the table with me, the food with me, and lots and lots of awesome memories and life lessons with me. And at the end when I asked the owner why- why you were so generous to me- he told just one thing that you smiled and were very kind enough to do a handshake with me. I had the most amazing Paneer tikka, Malai Kofta, and Dal Makhani at Lavendra, had one of the best evenings, and had an amazing time all because I smiled at someone 🙂 Such a warm place, such a nice gesture and such a kind world. Smile!

10 out of 10 for customer service and Kindness! Lovely...

This is a hard review for me, I really hate leaving negative reviews but it needs to be shared. Whilst I’d like to highlight that the staff were really friendly, the experience was really let down by the average food, mediocre service, and the awful atmosphere. Our experience: We booked a meal for 7:30pm but when we arrived they took 10 minutes to find us a seat. We were crammed into the end of a 8 seat table which was clearly set up for a later booking. They appeared to over book their tables and were constantly waiting for people to finish and leave before seating those who had a booking and were waiting. Eventually the table of eight turned up and we were asked to move across the restaurant to a different seat that had then become available which is not ideal mid meal. Whilst the food was good, it was nothing impressive considering the price we paid. I was really disappointed to be informed that I was unable to order a bottle of white wine from their wine list as they ‘didn’t have any bottles’ which is odd for a restaurant that has a large wine list and advertises that they offer wine pairing courses. They added insult to injury when they then followed that with ‘there’s a shop opposite of you want to go buy a bottle’ which was actually rather infuriating as if it was my problem that they do not have the wine they advertise on their list. The tasting menu provided a great range of different foods to try but they waited until we started dessert to inform us that the tasting menu is ‘all you can eat’ so if you like a dish you can order more at the time. This felt a little odd telling us at the end of the meal as we had finished our entrees and mains… Furthermore, the actual restaurant is very compact and we attended on a very hot evening. The restaurant was unbearably hot. The combination of a small place, crammed with too many people, no air con and no open windows made for an extremely uncomfortable atmosphere and all I wanted was to pay the bill and leave. Overall, I left feeling like my money was not well spent and rather disappointed with the overall experience. Eating out is supposed to be an enjoyable relaxing experience which was not...

This review is two years late (August 2022), but I still think about this incident quite often. I just want to preface that everyone in my group felt the food was satisfactory and tasty. However, I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant to people with allergies.

My group of 5 booked a birthday reservation here, letting the staff know that I have a severe nut allergy with anaphylaxis. When choosing our dishes, we asked our waiter if any of the dishes we had ordered had any cashews or nuts in them. He assured us that the dishes we ordered had no nuts in them. It starts off great with the lamb chops, and then we move onto samosas. I take a bite of mine and swallow, immediately my mouth is itchy. I look down at my samosa to see that I’ve bitten into a whole cashew. We were so taken aback at how this was completely looked over. I could maybe understand if they were blended into curry, but visible, whole cashews being served after discussing my allergy with the restaurant twice is absolutely shocking.

The rest of the night I was so sick, I had a full on allergic reaction and anaphylaxis. This was especially disappointing, careless, and SO dangerous. We expected much better considering it had been discussed with the restaurant while making a booking, and while ordering our dishes. I received no apology whatsoever.

We did our part to make sure I was safe by notifying and checking with the restaurant. It is the restaurants responsibility to let us know if they cannot accommodate to my allergies, and that would’ve been...