JILANI — Restaurant in Babergh

Booked an early table for 7pm, arrived and was seated quickly. We ordered drinks which were delivered to our table. The waiter then asked for our order, bit difficult without being given a menu to look at. But an easy thing to pass off as oversight.. Food was quick to arrive and delicious, some of the best food I've eaten for a while. We finished our main and asked the waiter if we could see the dessert menu, this is where it all went horribly wrong for them. We were told we were not allowed dessert as they wanted the table for someone else, I understand at busy times table turnaround is necessary to maximise covers. However we were not informed of this when booking, when being seated or at any point. Remember we waited about 15 minutes for a menu at the start?? The manager then proceeded to say you can hear me talking to other people telling them I need this table so please leave. There was 3 or 4 tables who were already seated when we arrived at our alloted booking time of 7pm, they were still eating and had been there longer than us but were never asked to move or leave their table. We then went to pay the bill at the bar, they don't come to you. We were told we couldn't split the bill as it was already done, we were then ignored for a good 5 minutes before finally the manger split the bill for us, but not without several sighs and moans!! The food here is amazing however, I shall not be returning as the staff were rude, the manager was the worst of all and was so incredibly rude and blunt with us that on another day I would have happily walked out and refused to pay. Had the food not have been great I would have refused. Well worth a visit for the food but be warned about...

Booked a table for 8 people at 19:30 and only 6 of us could attend. Arrived on time and the restaurant was busy but our table was clearly available. The manager was extremely rude concerning the fact we had 2 people less and argued with one member of our party when all he was doing was trying to suggest how best to accommodate us with little fuss. Finally got seated and then waited an age to be asked for our drink choices. Ordered 2 x bottles of red wine. There seemed to be members of staff standing around but nobody was interested in taking our order and we had to ask several times before someone finally took our food order at 20:00. We spoke to other people who had been waiting 90 minutes for food. At around 20:45 with no sign of our food we decided to leave as the others we had spoken to were still waiting for their food. Member of our group went to pay for our 2 bottles of wine which should have been under £50 but he was charged £75 for the 2 bottles of wine and a bottle of water that was on the table. At this stage we just wanted to leave. Such a shame as we have been previously and the food was good. The treatment received was awful and the manager was rude - we were not the only...

This is a sad yet hilarious review.

We had dinner there this evening. All was relatively good until the very end. We ordered tap water to go along with our beer. When the bill came there was a charge for tap water (we specifically asked for this rather than the bottled water on the table).

A bit perplexed I question it with the staff.

A lovely debate ensues, where the front of house says at Jilani "have always charged for tap water". When informed they did not have that luxury (aka it is a legal requirement to serve it for free) we were told they always do it and that it is to cover their water bill - which is laughable. Imagine the shock when we didn't also see a charge for their council tax, insurance, energy and much more.

This "discussion" lasted several minutes before they ultimately decided it was not worth the hassle & removed it from the bill.

Overall, this was a bit of a shame and has left a bad taste in our mouth. I hope they realise this is very silly and not something they should continue doing. For the sake of a few quid per person, it is a hell of a risk to play for...