t-lounge by Dilmah – Chatham Street ️ — Restaurant in Colombo

If you support racism, discrimination, aggression and color-bar, this is your kind of place. If you are a foreigner or a Sri Lankan who honors respect and courtesy for all people regardless their skin color and nationality, and if you believe decent customer service includes at least a little bit of customer-friendliness, don't go to any of the T-lounges by Dilmah. As for me, I even stopped buying Dilmah Tea or recommending Dilmah tea to any of my foreign friends after what I had to go through at Dilmah T lounges. A couple of times I went to the Dilmah T lounge in Colombo 01 (Fort), the waiters were so rude and gave us nasty looks because we were in sari. It was really embarrassing for me because I was taking my friends out for a treat. However, we stayed and had tea there trying to be patient and not making a scene. One day, I went there with a friend and her 9 month old baby. The baby was fast asleep in her arms and we wanted to get a place where the baby will not be disturbed. The loft was empty but the waiter who greeted us rudely refused using rude words ordering us not to go to the loft. After that, we wanted to get place in a corner on the ground floor, but the waiter refused that as well. He insisted us that we should sit near a foreign couple having tea. We hardly had enough space to sit there with the baby. We asked to move one chair away from a particular place but the waiter rudely forbade that. We simply walked out of the shop! There are many other good coffee shops and tea lounges in the vicinity only a minute or two away from Dilmah. Recently, I had to meet up with a couple of friends at Dilmah t-lounge in Colombo 07, at the Arcade. I told my friends that the service at Dilmah is really lousy, but the traffic congestion was really terrible at that time and we did not want to drive to any other place. One Caucasian man was sitting on a sofa big enough for 3 people. There were two more cozy chairs in front of him in the cozy sofa set he was occupying. I and my two friends were shown to rigid uncomfortable chairs by the ever so rude waiter who greeted us (can you call remarks and facial expressions which make you feel like an intruder a greeting?). I asked the waiter whether I can ask the foreigner and get one or two of the cozy chairs for us. But the waiter scolded us. Soon after that, the foreigner left. We tried to move to the sofa he was occupying but the waiter stopped us saying that the foreigner went to the rest room and will be back. He said that as soon as the sofa set becomes vacant, he will let us have it. The foreigner returned, but he went directly to another place with high chairs and sat there working on his computer and chatting with another guy. I asked the waiter whether we can move to the sofa. I was really tired after a hard-day's work and would have loved to rest on the sofa. The waiter rudely refused and the sofa set remained vacant for about 20 minutes. After that, a couple of other guys came into Dilmah lounge, looked around for a good place to sit, and sat on the sofa! The same waiter promptly went to them with the menu!!!! I called over the waiter, his name was something like "Fawaz" and told him why he did not let us sit at that sofa set though he promised us he will give it to us as soon as it becomes vacant. The waiter was at a loss for words and after recovering from his shock, said that the sofa set was reserved by the company of the foreigner and the two guys who came in later work for that company!!!! yeah right! Obviously, Dilmah loves to serve only foreign people and treat local people who wear traditional dress as intruders!!!! Dilmah is such a dishonor to...

A Lonely Planet recommended location which was why we visited, but a real shame that the service just let the whole experience down.

Location: Nice location situated in Colombo not far from other sights and places to visit.

Venue: The tea room itself is lovely decorated and has a real modern yet somehow colonial feel to it. A good spot for a tea break or somewhere to casually catch your breath in the middle of a busy day.

Tea: The tea itself was nice. We opted for one standard tea and one of the more unusual hot milky vanilla drinks. Tea tasted nice but I wouldn't say anything crazily amazing. However with a whole booklet of tea to try, there is something for everyone and they seem to mix tea blends there to make drinks which is quite nice.

Service: Sadly this is where the visit was let down. It took a while for someone to even acknowledge we had entered the tea room which was already a little frustrating. However we let that go.

After being seated we witnessed two or three other groups complaining about the bills (as if they had been charged for the wrong things or were not satisfied), it was unclear exactly what had happened but again we let this go as weren't sure why they were complaining.

We gave our drink orders and sat excited to try them. Time passed and still nothing. We had been sat there for around 20 mins and still our drinks were nowhere to be seen.

The couple next to us were fairly unsettled too as the ladies drink arrived a good 10 minutes before the man's, resulting in her nearly finishing hers before his even arrived.

This is poor as people come to tea rooms and coffee shops to drink and socialise together, so if they come that far apart it defeats the objective.

We waited for our drinks and similarly my wife's drink arrived a fair bit before mine. Being polite my wife waited for mine but I insisted she started drinking otherwise hers would just go cold.

A waiter then came with 'my' drink, which was not what we ordered. He arrived with a cold vanilla milkshake which was completely the wrong drink and so we went back to ask for the correct drink.

As the venue is fairly small we could hear the complaining voices (although not speaking in English), and could tell the staffs frustration that we asked for our correct drink.

The waiter who took our order then came back trying to suggest we did order the cold milkshake, even though we pointed to on the menu when ordering.

This was quite annoying as he just had a really annoyed expression on his face even though it was his wrongdoing.

They amended the order but our mood was already ruined and so from then on we just didn't enjoy the experience.

Overall: The products are good, tea is nice, however the staff completely ruined the experience and to be honest I would not return due to the way we felt they managed our situation.

Others also complaining should have triggered the alarm bells but it seems we were not the only ones on the day...

I have been traveling around Sri Lanka and wanted to save the best (well known Dilmah) for last. Once we got here, the space was cluttered, had 3 workers and nearly no customers (total of perhaps 3 small groups of 1-2 people in the entire space) Yet no one taking our order _ it took 40 minutes to get our tea and cake which was taken out of the fridge and put on our table.. so it was a long wait time for low effort. We hadnt booked the tea tasting, which is fine but wanted to order a couple of individual tea just to taste without the explanation. The manager said he’ll see what he can do and never came back to us and was on the phone or doing other things. Completely unattentive staff, tea was served in a glass bottle which was not ergonomically designed - very disappointing for a big brand like this. The reason for the 2 stars is the acknowledge that the chocolate cake was ok, good gifting options, ladies seem to be working hard in the kitchen (although we are not sure why given the place was nearly empty). Would I be back here again? Maybe for merchandise but there are definitely much better places out there for tea tasting. I have updated my review from 2 stars to 3 because towards the end of the trip, the manager did take some time to explain the different teas for...