Shang Palace — Restaurant in Colombo

We walked in on a Friday evening and was pleasantly surprised to get a table right away. It might have been the fact that we walked in quite early. We were greeted by a friendly hostess who walked us to our table. Along the way, every single staff member acknowledged us in a welcoming manner. This was very pleasant to see as we haven't experienced it at many other establishments in Colombo. The initial interactions with the staff set the mood for the rest of the evening and it was very pleasant. The ambience of the restaurant is very appealing overlooking the city of Colombo with a view of the ocean and the lake.

Malshan was our server and he was very friendly and attentive. Just as many other places in Colombo, Shangri-la is also affected by the importation restrictions as they didn't have some of the wines listed on their menu. However, Malshan bought the bottles they had available for us to choose from. He was quick to serve us some green tea after we were seated and offered the prawn crackers.

The food was quick to arrive at the table and the presentation was impressive. Some dishes were exceptional and some were average to our desires. A few items on the menu weren't also available. The portion sizes were quite substantial and the pricing was justifiable.

Every single staff member was very polite, friendly and helpful. However, it was a bit disappointing to see that some attention to details was lacking. The menu had quite a few food stains (see pictures). Which in my opinion is a huge oversight for a place like Shangri-la. I hope this review will assist the staff to pay attention to such details and get them rectified. As such stains leave a negative impact on the overall experience.

We recommend anyone planning to dine here to make reservations before going as they tend to get quite busy. Not everyone might be as lucky as we were to be seated immediately.

Would surely recommend Shang Palace for it's good hospitality, service and ambience. When it comes to food, we can say the dishes we tried out get an overall rating of average.

We enjoyed the consistent warm hospitality extended along with friendly service from every single staff member and would like to thank Malshan for taking very good care of us during our dining experience. We enjoyed chatting with him and would like to wish him well.

We recommend Shang Palace without any hesitation and look forward to visiting again in the...

⭐ 1 Star – Utter Chaos Disguised as Fine Dining

What was meant to be an enjoyable evening at a supposedly five-star restaurant turned into one of the most disappointing and frustrating experiences imaginable. From start to finish, everything about this meal was a disaster — the service, the organisation, and even the communication were non-existent.

The service was absolutely abysmal. The staff looked completely lost and disinterested, and not one person seemed to know what was going on. Courses were painfully slow to arrive, and when they finally did, half of them were wrong. Random dishes we never ordered were placed in front of us with no explanation, while others we did order simply never arrived at all. At one point, we honestly weren’t sure if the kitchen was guessing.

To make things worse, we were never informed that this was an experimental set menu until halfway through the meal — which meant we had unknowingly become part of a trial run. We genuinely felt like test subjects rather than paying guests. For a restaurant that claims to be fine dining, this is completely unacceptable.

And then came the biggest shock — no one asked about allergies or dietary restrictions. Not once. In this day and age, and especially in a supposed luxury establishment, that’s completely inexcusable. It’s not just bad service — it’s a safety issue.

The lack of attention and care was so extreme that I actually had to get up and walk over to the manager to ask if I was supposed to give my order directly to the chef, or if this was a restaurant where the waiter comes to the table. That alone says everything you need to know about the standard of service here.

There was no flow, no detail, and no effort to make guests feel valued. Every element felt rushed, confused, and careless. For a place marketing itself as five-star, it didn’t even meet the standard of a basic café.

In summary: • Random dishes brought out, not what we ordered • Several items never arrived • No allergy or dietary checks • Staff completely clueless and disorganised • Had to approach the manager just to be served • No attention, no communication, no care

What should have been a refined dining experience was instead an exhausting ordeal. We left frustrated, hungry, and honestly in disbelief that a restaurant at this level could operate in such chaos.

Avoid this place completely until they learn how to run...

Shang Palace is located in the Shangri-La Colombo. We made a reservation for lunch on a Thursday afternoon in December. When we walked in, we didn’t see anyone in the restaurant so we were surprised that we needed a reservation but the tables in the back area were fairly full. We noticed right away that the staff were really friendly and knowledgeable about the Dim Sum they have on the menu. I think most people dining here will have Dim Sum before having a main course but we really enjoy Dim Sum so we make a meal out of it and don’t have a main course after. We have had Dim Sum in Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada (Toronto) and the USA and this place has some of the best Dim Sum we have ever had, it ranks up there with Hong Kong Dim Sum. They have lots of great flavors and there is no strange after taste, everything we had was excellent. We don’t have a single complaint about the Dim Sum or the restaurant and its staff. Keep in mind that if you are ordering Dim Sum here, each item on the menu comes with three pieces of Dim Sum. We were a group of four people so we could either add an additional piece to each item or simply order two items of each. We decided to order two items of each so that we had extra to share. We ordered Pear Beef Dumpling, Prawn Dumpling, Shrimp and Pork Shumai, Minced pork bun (piglet), Chive dumpling and Xiaolongbao. Like I said, all of them were really good but the one that stood out from the rest as the best was the Xiaolongbao which is a delicious soup filled Dim Sum. After we finished all the Dim Sum we ended up ordering a total of five I Xiaolongbao. By Sri Lankan standards, this is probably a fairly expensive place to dine but compared to the rest of the world, this high level quality of Dim Sum would have cost a lot more outside of Sri Lanka. Our total bill came to Rs 27,167.90 or approximately USD $75.00, see the picture of the receipt for the breakdown of pricing. You will also notice that the restaurant adds a Service Charge so I did not tip on top of that. One of the waiters told us they have an all you can eat Dim Sum on the weekends so we will definitely drop in for that. As you can imagine, I highly recommend this place especially for Dim Sum since that’s all we have had at...