Zara Indian Dining — Restaurant in East Hertfordshire

Nice decor but underwhelming food.

I normally use one of the other establishments in Bishops Stortford when after an Indian meal but tonight we decided to try Zara.

First impressions of the venue are good, it has a small car park and we found a reasonable sized space straight away.

There is a Gin bar directly off the car park entrance and there are a plethora of Gins to choose from if Gin is your thing, as it’s certainly on trend again right now. Especially so if its served up by a bearded hipster.

Through the bar and up the stairs is where we were seated, and the decor is very nice although the air extraction could be a little better as our clothes were very fragrant when we got home.

The service was attentive and very good, although I would make a suggestion that the staff do not stand 6 feet away from you at all times as it can feel a little uncomfortable.

Our drinks were served at an incredible speed, which is refreshing as generally speaking service is never this quick. They were literally about 35 seconds from order to table. We ordered our food which also turned up pretty quickly.

I had a chicken pathia which also came out quickly in a decorative patterned metal bowl but was actually very bland. It was spicy with heat but didn’t actually taste of much as the chicken had virtually no flavour and there wasn’t very much of it. My fiancé’s meal of chicken tikka masala was, apparently very nice. My rice was well cooked and tasted good.

Overall I’d give it a three out of five as the meal was quite costly, which I wouldn’t mind if it was really tasty. However in my case,...

4 of us ate here, it was my first time. Lovely venue but poorly managed, everything took ages, we waited nearly half an hour for drinks, main meal wasn’t piping hot like it’s just been cooked but it was still ok. The food quality was average, probably because it had sat for ages in the kitchen before being served.

The staff are unorganised and there seemed to be no communication between them, during the evening we ordered more drinks that took 20 minutes to arrive. When they did, only one drink arrived and we had to ask for the others. When the food was delivered it was unorganised too and the waiter relied on us to tell him what we are waiting for and what was missing. After 5 visits to the kitchen

The place was full to capacity but clearly there is no staff management there and they was too busy to cope. We could see other guests waiting ages to be served too. We didn’t order desert as we had been in there long enough and didn’t want to wait any longer.

I will be choosing a different venue next time we are in the area as it wasn’t worth the money in my opinion. If I’m paying good money then I expect good service.

Shame as it had potential.

I score it a 2/5 stars as we was all...

So me mate Adam picked this place for a few of us, he's quite fussy and so we tried it.

Ambiance - lovely, top class restaurant good quality furniture and high contrasting colours everywhere, very traditional. Perfect lighting and your not too close to other tables.

Staff - our waiter was a top class bloke, he judged us well and was a right laugh with us, gave some good recommendations too.

Drinks - sunk a few cobras which they have on tap

Food - Got mixed platter starters all very nice, breads bajis the lot. No complaints.

Mains, decent curry, we all ordered different dishes and all shared and enjoyed them. They were the standard Indian restaurant dishes, very nice in flavour. Highly recommend the Gurka Revenge, this was as hot as a madras but didn't blow your head off. Overall the dishes were tasty, I'd advise you ask if you want spicy, as they focus more on taste in my opinion. Ask for some 'Naga Pickle' that is a test on your spice level!, Next time I will try a special dish or something not tried before.

All in all its a nice setting with ya misses with some...