Lamaya Bristol — Restaurant in Bristol

Thank you for reaching out and for taking the time to follow up on our experience at Lamaya. I appreciate the opportunity to share more detailed feedback, as I believe this can help improve the experience for future guests. While we were excited to visit Lamaya based on its reputation and reviews, unfortunately, our expectations were not fully met. Here are some specific points regarding the food and service. Starters: The tabbouleh was excellent—fresh, vibrant, and well-balanced. It was definitely the highlight of the meal. However, the baba ghanouj was disappointing in flavor, and the remaining starters were quite average, lacking any standout qualities. Main Courses: The lamb skewers started off promising but quickly became overly salty and monotonous halfway through. The couscous and chicken shawarma were both dry and under-seasoned, which made them less enjoyable. The Lebanese moussaka was particularly underwhelming—it felt more like a side dish than a main course, consisting of just tomato sauce with chickpeas, a few leaves of lettuce, and some chopped onion. I would have expected a more substantial and thoughtfully composed dish. One recurring issue was the lack of complementary sides or vegetables with the main dishes. A proper garnish or salad could have elevated the presentation and balanced the flavors better. Additionally, the portion sizes of sauces were far too small—they barely lasted a few bites, leaving much of the meal feeling dry and incomplete. The service also left room for improvement. While plates were cleared promptly, there was no check-back during the meal to ask if everything was to our liking or if we needed anything else. This is something I would expect as standard in a restaurant. Checking in only at the end of the meal felt too late to address any concerns we might have had during our dining experience. When visiting a restaurant like Lamaya, I look forward to dishes that are innovative or prepared with such expertise that they feel beyond what I could create at home. Unfortunately, much of what we tried felt comparable to standard fare from an average kebab shop rather than something elevated or unique. Given Lamaya’s reputation and glowing reviews, we arrived with high expectations but left feeling disappointed and unsatisfied. That said, I do appreciate your commitment to using fresh ingredients and incorporating authentic Lebanese flavors into your menu. It’s clear that a lot of thought goes into crafting your offerings, but in our case, the execution didn’t quite live up to...

Lamaya is a really great restaurant for authentic Lebanese food and gluten free options, all while being reasonably affordable for the quality of the food you get! My partner, some friends and I visited in August this summer. My partner and I absolutely loved sharing the following mezza: Falafel (2 portions), Fried Halloumi, Batata Harra and Hommos. This was more than enough for 2 people and was even served with pitta breads as standard! The Falafel was our favourite dish - they were so perfectly crispy and the tahini dip was incredibly tasty and addictive! Some of the best falafel I’ve ever had.

I felt so looked after by the staff too who kindly brought out some GF pitta bread for me so I didn’t have to miss out - it’s so great that they have thought of offering this and I really appreciated them going the extra mile. The waiter also duly warned me of cross contamination risks but informed the kitchen I was Coeliac so they could take precautions to ensure my food was safely prepared, which I also really appreciated. I felt very safe and welcome eating here!

We dined in a group of six on a Saturday night so the restaurant was very busy and quite loud, which was to be expected. We booked the table earlier in the day but when we turned up for our booking, there wasn’t a table ready for us. We had to wait an extra 10 mins while the staff physically moved an extra table over to accommodate all six of us in a more narrow part of the restaurant. However, this didn’t put any time pressure on us or our booking. In fact, a 2.5 hour time slot was more than enough time for us to dine, enjoy our food and catch up!

Thank you Lamaya for a fab...

A little late, but better late then never! vega friendly, a lot of choices from the Libanese kitchen. The Lebanese homemade lemonade is a fresh surprise and suited the courses very well. We had a few side dishes and a main dish, they complemented each other very well. The staff will give you advises on

We would like to thank Maya for her personal and warm service. In terms of the food we’d like to say: The menu is friendly to all with a lot of dishes to choose from (including vegetarians and vegans). The hommos beirut was really tasty, with a good amount of spice but not too much! The fatayer spinach was superb, crunchy on the outside and a tasty spinache filling inside! The fatoush was a nice mixture of fresh salad and croutons that were spilled with some vinegar. It wasn’t soaked with vinegar, which kept it crispy. The cheesecake and the baklava were a surprise. These are Lebanese variations so they differ quite from Turkish Baklava and New York cheesecake. However, the cheesecake was a crumbly cake with some syrup and a thick layer of cream on top, sprinkled with pistache nuts. When you take a bite of the cheesecake with all the ingredients combined, it’s a very harmonic experience. The flavour and the texture go very well together! Last but not least: the Lebanese lemonade! A fine and fresh experience throughout all of the dishes. It is homemade and has a sweet yet refreshing taste. Loved it!

Thank you Maya,

From Hannah and Job (the...