Fig Tree Grill — Restaurant in Hertsmere

I wasn't sure about reviewing, but I think it is only fair to be honest and let others know if they wish to try here. I hope that this is taken as a good piece of advice to improve, rather than invoke a negative response.

Surprisingly, as a Cypriot cuisine, they do not serve meze, so we ordered some meals to share. Appreciate that not every place does meze.

The portions are very good, although somewhat dubious about the chicken - it just didn't look right.

It's a takeaway place with tables along the side, but you do get served with proper plates, glasses, etc, although it is not really a 'restaurant'.

The drink glasses were dirty, even when we asked for replacements. Surprisingly, pitta bread doesn't come with taramasalata!

It is disappointing because the food is okay and we eat out a lot - 2-3 times a week and they could have had a lot of business from us, but sadly, it is not meant to be.

The sheftalia were very nice, as was the pourgouri. The chips not great, certainly not very 'Cypriot-style'.

We don't think that the salad was fresh either, and also not very 'Cypriot'.

I mean, it was okay on the evening, but I asked to take the leftover food home. Again, no service, just dumped cartons on the table for us to do it ourselves. (We paid 15% extra for that - See below.)

I took home what was left over and I put the salad in the fridge on the night we ate. The following morning, it had turned brown, so it must have been a few days old already.

The lamb, which is the most expensive meat that they charge for, was all fat - on the night, and what I took home and tried to eat the next day.

When we paid, we were not given a receipt, but from memory, and upon reviewing their menu, we think that we were overcharged:

When calculating everything we purchased, the only thing not priced on the menu and it worked out that the pitta bread was £14.60 - Surely not?

Upon looking at the reviews online, it seems that there is a compulsory 15% service charge. The response is that it is not mandatory, but we were not informed about it when we were paying and we never got a receipt, so it is mandatory.

The 'eat-in' prices are already higher than the 'takeaway' prices, so 15% on top of that really hikes up the cost.

In terms of 15% "service" - The waitress wasn't interested in serving us and we had to wait for ages to order another drink because she was busy with the delivery driver.

The owner and the female who served us just left when they finished their shifts without even acknowledging us, as we finished our meals, and as mentioned, we were left to deal with our take-home boxes ourselves.

We were left with a sour experience.

I don't know how they have won best kebab for 2024 and 2023. There's at least 5 places in north London better. Better in terms of food quality and value for money.

Sorry to leave a disappointing review, but hopefully it will help...

A bad experience. Ordered takeaway via just eat and was very disappointed. Despite costing £3.00 the hoummus came as a container with no pita whatsoever, with the menu not even offering pita to be bought as a side! We also ordered 2 sets of olives, black olives and green olives for £4.00 each. The black olives were delicious but the green olives were absolutely disgusting, they were bitter with a metallic taste and I could barely eat more than 2. My partner found this to be the same and so we had to throw them away, much to our disappointment. Then onto the souvlaki, these were actually presented in kebab pitas, not your traditional souvlaki, and absolutely overflowing with salad to the point where we had to empty the pita to be able to eat it. There was no sauce whatsoever accompanying the souvlaki, just the filling and the salad, which meant I was glad to have ordered an extra sauce. There was so much onion it was simply overwhelming. The menu online offers no description of the items, meaning I had to look up what the items were, and as demonstrated by the lack of pita this meant I was unsure of what I would be receiving, which is a serious issue the restaurant will need to correct soon. All in all, very disappointed as I was excited to have a local Greek restaurant to go to. For the cost of the meal (approximately £27) I feel like I got the equivalent of 15 quid from a kebab place. I'm sure they could improve this and make it so much better, and when that time comes I look forward to...

We thought to try this restaurant for the first time based on reviews and the awards they have won. Unfortunately they did not live up to expectations! This can’t be called a restaurant, it is a takeaway with a few tables as an afterthought, upon arriving we were shown to our table, no menus were brought to us, had to take them of the table next to us. Had to call someone over to take our order, then waited 40 minutes for our order to come! There was plenty of staff behind the grill, but all they were concerned about was the takeaway orders (which came thick and fast) and not the seated customers! No bill was brought to us either we had to pay at the takeaway counter. To our shock they automatically added 15% service charge without mentioning this! Overall this first experience of the Fig Tree Grill was disappointing and suffice to say we won’t be going back! The only reason I have given it 2 stars is that the food was ok but...