Papa J's Indian Tapas Restaurant — Restaurant in England

Edit: The owner offered us a £20 voucher to take this review down. Obviously they care about how they look instead of decent service which they clearly are incompetent in providing.

Short version: Was given dirty menus, given dirty glasses twice. They opened the restaurant without their heating system working on a very cold November day so we were forced to wear our coats. A waitress called us rude for saying it's cold and that they shouldn't have opened. The manager and said waitress need to be sacked, I'm not sorry for saying that but this was appalling behaviour towards their customers in an expensive restaurant. I had been coming here for years and am very very very disappointed.

Long version: Came here for a meal out and was immediately given dirty paper menus which we had replaced. Then we found that the water glasses on our table were filthy as well. Of course we asked them to be replaced to which we were given ones which were just as dirty.

Then we complained to the manager, citing the above. Okay so he says they'll do better next time we come, but what about everyone else who was already there?

Anyway we find ourselves feeling very cold, it's basically winter at this time, we put on our coats to try to keep warm. Around us are many tables with children as well with their coats on. Then we find out that their Central heating/air conditioning system is broken and they're trying to heat the entire restaurant with only two portable heaters, which they move one closer to us. Honestly it made no difference.

Now a waitress came over to see how we were, we said we weren't happy about the central heating not working, (it's a high cost restaurant so heating should be an obvious thing to expect). She said it's not the restaurants problem, that we were being rude and too harsh.

Disgusting behaviour, in a place you pay £5 for a pint, this person was unreasonable and started trying to argue with us because their manager opened a restaurant with no heating whilst it was cold. Another waitress saw how she was behaving and took over and was apologising and I genuinely felt sorry for her with such bad co-workers.

It's not the waitresses fault at all, but the first one was deplorable in how she treated us and the manager can't do his job properly.

In the end we left and got dominoes pizza, at least there we received good service and quality....

I would give this restaurant no stars if the option was available.

We have been going here for many years and also supported them during the pandemic by getting take away from there.

We went here to celebrate my husband's birthday last night. My son had come down specially from St Albans. Upon arrival, we were seated and given dirty menus covered in curry stains and the glasses for water were very dirty. We called our waitress over who was lovely (a wonderful Chinese young lady). She promptly changed the menus and changed the glasses. Unfortunately, the new glasses that were brought to our table were also dirty, she kindly changed these. We called the manager over and expressed our disappointment, he took on board our complaints and we saw him going over to discard the dirty menus in the pile. All was well again until we started feeling cold, then we noticed that several people in the restaurant has their big winter coats on. We called the lovely waitress over and she told us that the heating was broken, this was not mentioned when we first arrived, it would have been polite to do so. The lovely waitress then kindly brought over a heater for us, we asked her to place it between us and a family sitting near us with their winter coats on.

All was okay again until a young petite Asian waitress turned up at our table, looked me up and down and then told my husband that he was too harsh with the manager, how dare she even have the audacity to come over and speak to us about this!!! She told us that we were causing trouble because we had complained.

In what staff training and customer service did Papa j's give this awful, very rude waitress the right to go and speak to customers of many years in this way?

By this time we had enough, we went to the bar to pay for our drinks and told the bar man that we were not happy with the service that we had received or lack thereof.

We have been recommending this restaurant and visiting ourselves for years, sadly, we will not be doing this any more.

We were not asking for anything special or any money off our bill, just the service that you would expect from a restaurant like this for us and all of the other customers.

Such a shame this restaurant is now being let down by incompetent staff.

Thanks for ruining my husband's birthday...

The night we went was a wednesday in November. An old friend and i went for a catch up over a good meal.

The night we went was a disappointment.

It was so busy with 3 separate tables of 12+ (one had about 25+ including young kids running about the place) that it was a struggle to hear each other over the noise(and i actually left the place with a sore throat).

It took us 15 minutes after being seated to be asked if we'd like a drink and after we had eventually ordered our food it took another 45 minutes just to get our starters.

The waitress, who was working her first night, was very polite and attentive but didn't have a clue about any of the dishes so eventually had to ask a more senior server to take our order (and offer recommendations).

The food was good but definitely not a knock-out.

The Takka dal was the best I've ever had in this country and not too wet/soupy like almost any other curry house's version. The lamb chops were very good, cooked very well, but again I've had better. The Chicken Mongolian was fantastic. The rice and breads were well cooked and of near perfect texture and consistency. The Piri Piri wings were very disappointing and just tasted of vinegar. I fear that due to them having to cook for and serve such large numbers of other guests that our food was probably not as good as it might have been. I feel that the restaurant could possibly be spreading themselves a little thin...

The meal for two including 2 bottles of water and two mango smoothies (we don't drink alcohol) came to £70 which i found overpriced. Had the atmosphere been less rawkus and service been quicker it might have been worth it but not this time.

I must add that our second waitress was fantastic. I also must add that i would be willing to give Papa J's another try again one day, but would have to check they weren't quite so busy by telephoning beforehand.

I will amend my rating if that ever does happen but for now i believe it to be a...