Rai Woburn — Restaurant in England

It was our first visit to Rai and we weren’t disappointed! Very attentive and friendly service, gorgeous decor and glassware / crockery / cutlery etc matched up to the price point of the menu which I think all matters as well as of course the food as it’s all part of the experience. Cocktails and mocktails were lush and included lovely extras and were worth the money. They were presented beautifully and the flavours were so interesting. We sat in the cocktail lounge at first which was beautiful, before heading to our table in the restaurant which is a lovely extension on the building with amazing decor and skylights. The food was AMAZING! It’s fine-dining Indian food but with other influences (E.g I had Malaysian prawn curry, there are also gyoza on the small plates). You won’t find a chicken korma or a lamb tikka masala here, but that’s definitely not a bad thing! The menu is varied but not enormous like a lot of Indian restaurants can be, which actually makes choosing easier I find. You also know that it means they do all their dishes well. We swapped one of our starters (small plates) at the recommendation of the manager to one of the Chaats (street food dishes) and that was out of this world! The starter portions were very generous! We could easily have shared one small plate. Our chicken dish was huge! The mains were amazing, about average portion sizes but certainly not small. Everything was presented absolutely beautifully and was a treat for the eye as well as the taste buds. If I was being picky, I would say there was a discrepancy with how spicy some dishes were - we had the lamb madras (‘3 chillis’ and very spicy!) and the prawn Malaysian curry (‘3 chillis’ and not very spicy, but full of lovely flavour). So it’s worth asking about the level of heat if that’s important to you. We mentioned It was my husbands birthday and they surprised him with a lovely complimentary dessert (carrot pudding which was delicious). We were far too full to order desserts, but it was nice to try a bit of a dessert so that we know what to expect when we return. The staff happily packaged a half of a leftover main and half naan for us to take home. Would absolutely recommend you visit here. We’re fairly local but had never heard of the Rai till a Friend mentioned it, and we were so glad to not need to travel into central london for fine-dining Indian food, which is what we were going to do. We spent £99 for 2 people: 2 starters (1 meat one veggie), 2 (meat) mains including the most expensive main on offer, 2 naans, 1 rice. 1 cocktail and 1 mocktails. This also included £10 ish service charge. I think it was definitely worth the cost for all the reasons listed above and we shall definitely be returning soon now we’ve...

Our recent visit to Rai in Woburn was a mixed bag, with some pleasant surprises but also significant letdowns. The decor is undeniably nice, creating an inviting ambiance—though the oddly colored bathrooms felt a bit out of place. However, the dining experience itself left much to be desired.

Upon arrival, the service was slow despite being quite empty, setting the tone for the evening. The food itself was hit and miss. While the drunken crab, rosemary lamb and lamb chops were flavorful and well-cooked, the avocado bhel was a letdown, with barely any avocado to be found. Despite the enticing menu, the portion sizes were disappointingly small. The chilli paneer for starters just had 7 cubes which to me is less than a block of paneer.

We were a group of four and ordered two curries and a biryani alongside 3 naans and a paratha based on the waiter’s suggestion that it would be plenty of food for mains. To our surprise, the butter chicken had just four bite-sized pieces of chicken in a sea of sauce, and the saag lamb came with only five small pieces of lamb. When we inquired about the portion sizes, the waiter casually dismissed our concerns, stating that this was just their standard portion.

Given the portion sizes, the prices felt exorbitant—£15 for four pieces of chicken swimming in sauce is simply unacceptable, even for a fine dining establishment. Our bill came to £182, and it would have been closer to £200 if the waiter hadn’t taken off the butter chicken after our complaint.

Overall, while Rai tries to position itself as a fine dining experience, it falls short on key aspects like portion size, service speed, and value for money. For the price, we expected much more. Rai has potential, but they need to address these inconsistencies to truly deliver on the fine dining promise.

P.S. - £7.50 for a premade basket of cold popadoms with drops of...

When we first walked into Rai, we were impressed with the decor but that soon went downhill when we were seated at a tiny table(25”) to then be served poppadums not as we know them( they were a variety of shop bought small snacks some were actually mini poppadams but the majority were polystyrene like snacks😩. My husband’s starter was a pile of chicken bits decorated with a couple of slices of radish.I was recommended the tiger prawns so I went for that and received 2 prawns (£18) My husband went for the monkfish curry for main( just 4 pieces for £22!!!!!)I went for the Jackfruit curry, it was beautifully arranged on the plate but it was cold🙄so had to return it back to the kitchen, they bought it back just dumped into a soup bowl ( gone was the fancy plate) even the manager thought that was disrespectful . We ended up eating separately and the rice and Nan were cold by the time I had mine returned. This place is all show and the food is greatly overpriced. I would definitely not recommend it and I would...