Colombo 7 — Restaurant in England

Super disappointing birthday dinner. Family of 5. Servers took ages to come over after we sat down, and the service didn’t improve from there. We ordered some drinks and one of each starter on the menu, as the menu is very limited. Starters were really good (other than the chicken livers) but too small to share really, which is how we like eat, and they were gone in a few minutes. And then the wait began… Two waitresses for the number of people in this (small) restaurant appeared too few, as we had no drinks and no food for about 25 minutes. Eventually, I went to the bar to order drinks from a waitress behind the bar. They eventually came and the waitress dumped the bottle of wine on the table and left us to it… We had to flag down a waitress to order mains. The mains were disappointing - the prawn & chicken rice was dry and tacked flavour (my son was looking for sweet chilli sauce and soya sauce - wrong I know, but it needed something, I tasted it), the roast chicken curry was tasty but very basic (lacked depth of flavour) and the wild boar curry I had was much too salty (I add salt everything!) and the curry sauce tasted like the spices had not been cooked long enough. We have travelled to Sri Lanka, which is why we ate here, but this food tasted nothing like to food we had in Sri Lanka. Great service can make up for mediocre food. The trouble though is that poor service can ruin an evening, even if the food is reasonable, and that is...

Really Disappointed This Time.

We came in for a family dinner (table of six). We’ve eaten at Colombo 7 a few times before and always had great food and service, so we were looking forward to it. Unfortunately, this visit didn’t live up to expectations at all.

One of our meals was completely missed — not once, but twice — which meant a big delay while it was cooked… again. The rest of us were left sitting there, our food getting cold. This was despite the waiter double-checking the order at the start, which was frustrating.

On top of that, the food itself just wasn’t up to the usual standard. We figured maybe it was just an off night.

What really left a bad taste, though, was being told we’d get a round of drinks “on the house” as an apology, only to find they were actually charged on the bill. I didn’t notice until later (my fault for not checking closely), and a service charge was added automatically. I saw that part, but let it go to avoid making a fuss in front of the family. But realising we’d been charged for the “free” drinks really felt like a slap in the face.

I don’t usually write reviews, but I felt disappointed this time. Given how good past visits have been, I want to believe this was a one-off. Still, I don’t think we’ll be coming back — being misled like that leaves a...

Had a wonderful meal at Colombo 7 last night. Food was delicious, staff attentive and welcoming and nice environment. It hits the right note between a place you go to for a special meal and a more 'casual' place you might visit more frequently.

We had a good selection of dishes and would recommend everything we had. If I had to pick the stand-outs they were the lamb steak, beef brisket and aubergine side dish but everything was good across the board.

I'd firmly recommend it if you live anywhere in the west herts/bucks area or beyond. If you don't know Sri Lankan food it's like a cross between Thai and Indian (that's probably a very poor description so just give it a go).

Note: The menu has a great selection of gluten free and vegan options and unusually, the GF/Lactose Intolerant majority in our group of four had a lot more to choose from than most...