The Reef — Restaurant in Tiruporur

March 2024 experience:

Parking: has good valet parking for cars

Reservation: This place surprisingly runs full esp over weekends. So better book in zomato and call over phone to confirm reservation

Experience: Even after confirming over phone call, after reaching place , we were asked to change table thrice! Why would any staff do that. We have been seated in our assigned tables all the time but asked to move. Bad start already

Food: We went on Saturday lunch buffet which really lacked food variety … quite shockingly limited food spread for such a five star restaurant. Shockingly there are no live chat counter , no live dosa counter , no sea food specialty counter which more surprising given this is a sea side hotel named “Reef” . They just have basics to call themselves as buffet . Also all the good looking stuff they tag as “display only” which I don’t understand why they want to display in a food serving area Even the self served food isn’t any novel or worth raving. They are either average or pretty much bad esp desserts are worst.

Ambience: Doesn’t have any personality or any grand . A mix of cushion chairs and bamboo chairs which don’t go well together . The hall is so packed with tables and chairs that it becomes difficult to navigate with places to self serve food . Felt so cramped and high on noise.

Staff: Even staff service was below average . The staff doesn’t coordinate and quite a lot of confusion. There is lot of lethargy and waiting time . They don’t tell you that Icecream , welcome drink , indian breads are part of buffet menu . They lack motivation .

Customisation: It’s a birthday event which I had called and reminded twice. On the day , the staff quite happily forgot , so I had to tell our good usher Albin , he tried his best to get it done . For this simple request , 3 staff including floor manager came and spoke to me . After a good wait time, another female usher came and simply placed the cake on table and left telling us she will collect candle and come. It’s a common sense that birthday never works like that and cake and candles must always come together . Total awkward waiting and silence until she came back with one lil candle and we had to fake smile back.

Overall, average food , sub par staff except Albin, worst receptionist/reservation handler , poor ambience. I have had great experience with Taj and even ITC over this Sheraton establishment

I will not recommend this place to my Frnds and...

A lavish spread of buffet.

The Reef is certainly a place one should visit. The theme of the interiors were designed combining sea, sand & the restaurant and this alone took 6 months.

There are few specialities which is certainly worth mentioning:

They have a 24/7 ice cream counter. Hence those who are staying in the property can have it at any time, as per their wish.

There is a dedicated chat counter (which isn’t there in any of the 5-Star rated restaurants).

There is a dedicated counter for the western cuisine. This place has its own oven that the pizza and pastas were made on demand from 11am to 11pm.

There is a live counter for making Thai Food. You can get Bao & Skewers here. Veg & Non Veg Food are cooked in separate grills. Do not miss to try these(highly recommended).

There is a dedicated counter for desserts.

They also have a dedicated section for Curd & its products like Curd Rice, Dahi Vada and accompaniments.

Of course there is a dedicated Indian cuisine section as well. This features delicacies from South India majorly and is divided into Veg & Non-Veg section.

I was literally surprised when I was told that their lavish spread of buffet over the weekdays were priced at just ₹550 and on the weekend,it is ₹800.

Lunch/Dinner buffet also has a complimentary beer 😍

The ambiance is something which shouldn’t be missed.

Coming to the property as such:

I haven’t had the chance to visit the property since I reached the venue real late due to the sudden downpour. I was told that the property has few restaurants with each one of them providing an unique experience of their own.

They have banquet halls which is good enough to accommodate upto 1000 members.

The sea is hardly 200 metres from the property.

Mahabalipuram is just 25 kms from this place. Crocodile Bank is literally on the next door. Muttukadu boating & other attractions like MGM Dizzee World are located very close by. Pondicherry can be reached within 2 hours.

What more do you need?

Do not forget to visit the property if you’re in Chennai & for Chennaites, if you wanted to relax, this is certainly the best place to visit.

P.S. I will try to give coverage about the entire...

TL;DR Delicious variety of food, super-friendly staff and great service.

We had our breakfast buffet at The Reef during our stay at the Sheraton and had a dinner there on one night. Starting with dinner, they have a wide variety of cuisines in menu for dinner so you are sure to find something to match your taste.

For our dinner we had Chicken Chettinad Pizza and Prawns biryani. I was also planning to have a steak but these 2 dishes themselves were more than enough for 3 of us. The pizza had nice crispy thin crust and perfect balance of cheese, sauce and toppings. The chicken had subtle Chettinad flavours and was not too spicy. The prawn biryani was amazing with perfectly cooked prawns, long grain basmati rice that was flavoured nicely with whole spices and again not too spicy. Sanket served us with smile and gave his recommendations. He made sure that everything was to our liking and kept checking on us even during breakfasts throughout our stay!

The Reef has extensive selection of food for breakfast as well, more so in veg than non-veg. We enjoyed all the south Indian delicacies like dosa, rava dosa, Mysore dosa, Rava dosa, Idli, Vada, Daal vada etc. The sambar and chutneys perfectly complement them. I savoured on the continental selection of eggs made to order, pork sausage, bacon, toast and coffee. For the sweet tooth they have wide range pastries, donuts, pancakes, waffles and few Indian hot sweets too. I preferred the charcuterie and cheese board over sweets. We would have loved to have few sound Indian non-veg selections in breakfast like Appam Mutton Stew, Appam Chemmeen Moilee but that's Malabar cuisine and not Chettinad cuisine. I am also not sure if they have a la carte menu for breakfast, would have loved to have avocado toast with poached eggs or Eggs Benedict. Akshay and Amar took good care of us during breakfasts and got everything we needed to our table so that our mom didn't need to get up frequently. Both of them made us feel home by talking to us in Marathi as they are from Mumbai as well :)

We couldn't stay for the famous brunch they have on Sundays but would visit them once...