Taverna Greek Kitchen - Souk Madinat Jumeirah — Restaurant in Dubai

This should have been a five star experience as the food was really outstanding and the service from our waiter Mahmood was exceptional. The evening started off sourly and was tainted by the way that we were treated by the restaurant manager Natalia. We arrived at 7:10 pm for our 7 pm reservation and we were instantly told that our reservation was for 5 pm and that they could not seat us til 8:30 pm as a result. We showed the waitress our email confirmation for 7 pm and explained we’d received a phone call in the afternoon from the restaurant confirming our 7pm reservation. The waitress went to get the manager who came to talk to us. Her attitude towards us was that we had somehow made the mistake of changing the reservation time. Even when we persuaded her that we had not done so, her attitude was still that it was not their fault either and that the booking system/call center was to blame and therefore she would be doing us a favour to honour our reservation as the problem was not their fault. We could not believe her attitude towards us. She kept going on about the restaurant having 170 people arriving and that she would do her best but she could not guarantee how long we could stay at our table as if we were to blame. When we reacted incredulously, she finally sat us down AT THE WORST TABLE in the restaurant. The restaurant was 2/3rds empty at this stage. So my two sisters and I sat down and then agreed we could not accept the table so when Natalia came over we explained that we were very unhappy with the way she had handled the whole situation and persuaded her to move us to a better table which she did. We then watched group after group refuse to be sat at that bad table. Anyway, we knew that to rescue the evening, we’d have to move on from the way she had made us feel responsible for their failure. For my sisters and I this was an important dinner as we had not been together for two years and we had driven along way and for almost an hour to get to the reservation. Fortunately we were blessed with a brilliant waiter, Mahmood, who I think has to be one of the best waiters I have ever had. He turned the situation completely around. He was clever and very funny. More importantly he was knowledgeable and very very good at his job. He didn’t just hand us our dishes, he took everything a step further. For instance, when he put the Greek salad on the table, he proceeded to mix the salad up, breaking the feta and serving each of us in turn. The salad was amazing. When we were unsure about which fish to order, he brought various choices to the table and gave us important info to help us make our choices. We ordered the Greek sea bass for two which he deboned at the table and served to us. It was outstanding and was, hands down, the best sea bass I have ever had. We also had the cheese pie and the lamb chops which my sister had and said were absolutely delicious. Natalia came over a couple of times but did not apologize for mishandling the situation. She said she was sorry we were unhappy about the way she had handled it but would not own her poor management of the situation. She kept on saying how busy they were expecting to be. It turned out that the restaurant never filled up and the 170 people did not materialise due to cancellations and traffic issues. She told us that she had never had a complaint about her management skills in the 3 years she had been Manager there. Big Deal! When my sister spoke to her separately outside the restaurant she did apologise for mishandling the whole thing. After dinner, they brought us a round of Mastiha shots and two different desserts, compliments of the House. That was very kind of Natalia though frankly I would have preferred if she had comped us one of the bottles of wine we had as our bill came to 2600 AED Dirhams before tip. . As I said the food was delicious and our waiter Mahmood was excellent. My feeling is that we were treated badly because we were three middle aged women who they expected would take the bad treatment...

Second visit to this wonderful restaurant in Madinat Jumeirah. It took over the old "Left Bank" outlet in the promenade restaurants and added a very substantial partially covered terrace area out to the waterfront. We were anxious to see if our first dining experience there (about 6 months ago) was luck or whether the food was as good as we remembered..and were not disappointed. We settled in for the long haul starting with a wonderful selection of the cold platters of which the Tirokafteri (pepper and feta) puree of hummus texture was the star and destined to transport your taste buds to the Greek islands or make you realise you have to go to Greece. Our selection was eagerly scooped up with olive pitta over lively chat by the 3 of us for an hour or more. Just like eating in a real Taverna there is no rush as the world and life will wait for good food and drink. We then ordered 2 main courses to share between the 3 of us by way of a sensational Bifteki with tomato rice and Taverna mixed grill cooked on the wood fired grill (grilled to doneness taste) and served with warm olive pitta and Tzatzaki. All the above washed down with plenty of Mynos greek beer and chilled bottles of Pinot Grigio. It's getting a bit hot to eat outside in Dubai now so the only downside we found was that after about 3 hours in the spacious inside dining area we were very cold from the AC. So we finished our 7 hour visit sitting outside for the last few hours by the waterfront with a fan and evening air to enjoy finishing our drinks, our coffee and round our taste buds off with a Cinnamon shot from Roots which we had never seen before. Try it it's wonderful smooth and tasted like "Christmas". A wonderful day of laid back catch up and truly delicious food. The service is very slick and friendly (but not overbearing like too much of Dubai). So we offer Congratulations to the establishment for not falling into the Dubai trap of new restaurants running out of steam after the first 6 months. We suspect this Taverna is set to expand and remain the top eating promenade restaurant of Madinat. As veterans of living in Dubai for most of the last 20 years can honestly say you deserve minimum 5 stars, keep up the great food and...

Wow after all these years, this is the first time I’m leaving a positive review on my own! Taverna must be the only restaurant in Dubai that the staff have never ask me to leave a review, that says something about their overall quality.

First off, thanks to the FFI Group and Chef Theo, I consider Taverna is one of, if not your best restaurant.

Most people start by reviewing the food, but I have to say after visiting Taverna more than 40 times over the last 7 years, Taverna has the best staff in Dubai, I truly mean that, class, experience, and what a great atmosphere and culture, which you can see all stems from Chef Theo’s leadership, I see him sometimes walking around undercover with out his chef apron checking on things without anyone noticing :)

I’ve tried about 20 dishes over the years, never had an average meal, always fresh great tasting dishes, it’s hard to do that consistently, the menu would be described as timeless, it has stayed popular with only a few small changes over the years, but my favourites have always been the Greek salad, beetroot salad, tzatziki, octopus and Roast Lamb. Being a meat lover, I’ve tried most of the meat dishes and they are always juicy and succulent.

When people ask me which is the best restaurant in Dubai, I always say Taverna, and when I get challenged when you compare to places in DIFC, Palm, etc.. I always remind them, it takes great service plus great food to make a place special.

Today Taverna is like home, I won’t call anyone out in particular, but I want to say a big Thank You to the whole entire team, waiters, chef, managers, everyone, all of you guys and girls work really hard to make each and everyone of our visits special! You guys are awesome.

Ps - to those that haven’t had the opportunity pleasure of visiting yet, Taverna has a big group of regulars who keep the place packed, especially on weekends, you know you have to visit after reading this :) - so make sure you book at least a day online or...