Sultan — Restaurant in Cotswold District

IN THE PURSUIT OF AN INDIAN RESTAURANT IN CIRCENCESTER

Decided on The Sultan as that popped up close by. Was unable to find at first as restaurant is on first floor. Entry is through a shabby, grimy door. Went half way up stairs, but had second thoughts and left. WHERE TO GO NOW? Checked out "Sultan" reviews to see other people's comments and was amazed by 5* reviews. "Chic restaurant, wow food." Maybe we should have overlooked grubby door and given benefit of doubt. We returned....... First impression not good. Need to sort out front door and stair carpet. Glancing through door on first level looked promising. On entering there was a damp smell which looked like it came from carpet, due to strange colour pattern. WE SHOULD HAVE LEFT THEN!!! Waiter was very attentive, no fault there. Played it safe & ordered chicken tikka biryani, (chicken is usually red, this wasn't) and lamb biryani (lamb was uniform in size, something you'd get in precooked packet) Food was tasteless, colourless, not nice at all. WHY OH WHY, when waiter asked if everything was ok, we smiled === to polite, not wanting to offend. Lucky to say we didn't have a dicky stomach in the morning, which was playing on our minds all evening. Sorry Sultan, would...

We had dinner here and would not go back even if it were free. Vegetarian food was not good, non-veg was okay, and service was terrible.

We waited 75-mins for our food to come, and when it came our starters and mains came out all together. Our kids (3 kids) were hungry and we asked them multiple times to bring out plain rice and plain naan bread for them. The adults were happy to wait. We got told "let me serve the others first and then look into this". Essentially, we felt de-prioritized and kids had to wait 75-mins as well.

The bill came very quickly, and we asked the waiter why the service was below par - something he didn't quite agree with. We even asked why starters didn't come earlier - and his odd reply was "we had to specify that we want starters to come first". The waiter then said "it doesn't matter and its okay that it came all together"!! No apology or sincerity at all.

Unfortunately, won't be going there again and wouldn't...

Here on a busy Saturday night (and maybe they are always busy like this or it may have been in jubilant celebration of the England team beating Wales 68:14, although it looks like France will win the 6 Nations, as I write this review). Lots of waiting around for both our table (despite booking) and our food. However, the really pleasant and lovely staff acknowledged there were issues and knocked various items off the bill without any prompting.

The food was really nice - we had a king prawn biryani with loads of prawns in it and the lamb patia was hot, spicy, and tasty with large lumps of meat. Chutney tray with the poppadoms was really good.

Yes there were issues but we had a lovely meal and enjoyed our evening. When we return (and we shall), we will book for 8pm when the Saturday rush...