Khayyam — Restaurant in Lisbon

As I always say, everything is about our experience. In the hospitality sector, this factor is even more important, that's why we call our customers: Our guests! As the customer is the most precious wealth of any business, it is obvious that the first responsibility of any business owner and manager, especially in hospitality sectors, is providing a positive experience for their customers.

Unfortunately, Khayyam restaurant failed in this essential task.

With an extreme regret, I need to report that, in my whole life I never got such an awful experience in a restaurant. EVER! Khayyam! A beautiful name of a great Persians scientist and poet, motivated me and my guests to choose this Persian restaurant as our destination in the Yalda night (one of the important Persians festivals) and wish to celebrate this night there.

What a mistake!

The experience was something that even before ordering anything, I asked my guests to leave the place. So, so sad!

Until this moment, any Persian restaurant that I visited in my life provided me a good memory and experience and I deeply believed in Persians hospitality. But life teaches us every day a new thing. To me, now, not all Persians are so polite or so hospital or so wise. Some of them are aggressive, impolite, and bad host. So pity!

To Mrs Owner: As you said : Yes ! The restaurant is yours! You have total right on your restaurant! Yes, if someone goes to a restaurant should not take food there (if you consider pomegranate, watermelon, which are symbols of Yalda night, and people just brought them as a table design to take picture) ! But ; Firstly, as a responsible customer, when we booked the table, we especially called the restaurant and asked if we were allowed to bring them and got confirmation! Second, let's think you were right that we did not inform previously (or there was a misunderstanding from both sides), it could not be nicer if you or one of the staff calmly came to table and told us the policy of the restaurant?! Instead of standing in the middle of the restaurant and screaming that “NO FOOD!! JUST CAKE ALLOWED!" Obviously, this out of hospitality and harsh act, provoked my guest to tell, "SO IT WILL BE MY LAST TIME TO COME TO THIS RESTAURANT!" and you answered so harshly to him "MY DEAR! THIS IS MY RESTAURANT!" And when he told you, "DO NOT CALL ME MY DEAR", you said " IN MY RESTAURANT YOU TELL BE TO BE SHUT UP!!! ". Could you please tell me when he asked you to shut up?!!!! , obviously we, include him, were not your dear, because if we were, it was impossible to receive such a WELCOMING! Behaviour. And yes, we were not your enemy, because we decided to come to your restaurant on an important night ! Third, when someone, Me, just came to reduce the tension, and nicely invited you to calm down, because I really did not want to have a bad memory and experience on such a night, and asked you let's be happy on Yalda night and forget the tension. How could you think that it is correct to choose for words to tell me:" GO TO YOUR SIT!!!!"

I NEVER WENT BACK TO THAT SIT!

Thank you for your order! And, you may celebrate this success that my friends and I will NEVER come back to YOUR RESTAURANT, YOUR HOME! And, as a professor of business school, and the biggest entrepreneurship programme in whole Europe, I will make sure that I share this experience as a real case in my classes and make a list of NOT TO DO! For my students. Thank you for the awful experience and useful real case for my classes! By the way, if you are curious what we did after leaving YOUR RESTAURANT, we went to one of the best chines restaurants(Chuan Yue) near hotel Lutecia and we celebrated this night until 1 am there with all our FOODS!!! that we had and enjoyed Chuan Yue's hospitality, food, service, and nice, polite, competent, and joyful people!

To my readers: Do I recommend Khayyam...

BEWARE: Dishonest payment practice that VIOLATES card rules and YOUR RIGHTS!

We had an unfortunate experience here that travelers and diners should be aware of. When paying by card, the machine prompted the usual option: pay in EUR or USD. Our server, clearly following the owner’s instructions, selected EUR initially. But on the second screen, which exists to confirm or reject the Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) fee, she tapped “accept”, causing the transaction to revert to USD and add an unnecessary 5% fee.

We explained that only the cardholder is allowed to make this decision, and that what happened violates both Visa and Mastercard rules. Instead of acknowledging the issue, the owner came over and began to gaslight us, insisting that if we didn’t select USD, she would be charged the fee, which is completely false.

She also claimed that “no one else had ever said anything,” as if that meant we were wrong, a response that only reinforced the concern. At best, it shows she doesn’t understand how the system works. At worst, she’s been quietly overcharging customers and hoping no one notices.

Let’s be clear: this is not about the 8 extra dollars we were charged — it is about the principle. Customers should never be manipulated into paying a fee they did not consent to. And if the owner is not comfortable with the way card payments work, maybe she should consider accepting cash only instead of pushing the cost onto unsuspecting visitors.

It is a real shame because the food was decent and the service from our waiter was warm and attentive and 5 out of 5. But unethical practices like this, from the owner out of all people, leave a bad taste, no matter how good the meal was.

In conclusion, if you do eat here, enjoy the food, but insist on paying in EUR and MAKE SURE YOU, AND ONLY YOU, handle the...

I made the reservation on TheFork, to get a -50% discount.

I had great hopes when I entered the restaurant. It was nice looking, more elegant than the average restaurant. The waiter was attentive and pleasant.

The first course, Kashk-e Bademjou turned out to be a sauce, so I had tio also order their homemade bread. Both th eggplant sauce and the local bread was fantastic! I strongly recommend it! As the main course I chose the Chelow Kabab, two skewers with veal, with tomato, saffron rice and a salad. It was good, but not fantastic. The meat was not grilled to perfection, yet at the same time a little dry. As the dessert I choose the Gourmand Dessert, a combination of three different desserts: Robayyat, Baclava, and Ice Cream. The Ice Cream was good. The Robayyat was very dry and not very tasty, while the Baclava tasted OK, but was very soggy. I have never had worse Baclava.

The entire meal was EUR 30 with a glass of wine - probably out of a Bag-in-Box! - and a bottle of still water, with TheFork discount. However, the waiter insisted that there was no discount on the dessert "since the dessert was a menu" - which of course it was not. It was just a combination of three desserts! (It even says so in the menu! "Combination of ..."). Fair price, yet only acceptable food quality, and ending on a sour note due to the refusal to honour the TheFork discount on the dessert.

I cannot recommend this restaurant. Sorry. I will...