Bengal Brasserie — Restaurant in Leeds

Visited this evening with family for a special occasion. Terrible experience which spoilt the evening.

I’ll outline why below:

Table booked in advance (4 days notice) for 10 at 5.30pm. On arrival the restaurant was full with a similar party of 10 and a party of 20 or maybe more. There are only seats for 8 on our table.2 extra chairs were provided but squashed between tables and the bar.

Had a round of drinks and some popadoms but 1.5 hours later we were just receiving starters. Restaurant was full of people waiting for takeaways and a group at the door for over 30min waiting for a table.

Re Starters: Chicken liver tikka was very bland. Fish pakora didn’t taste fresh. Kebabs seemed warmed up in the microwave (to the extent they weren’t eaten). Onion bhajis equally bland. Not great at all.

At this point we said to the manager we’d pay for what we’d have and leave, but didn’t want to wait for the mains. Manager stated our food was ready, but how could this be the case when the table next to us (20+) were still to get their main courses?

Bottom line; restaurant accepted too many covers at once, in an restaurant unable to cater.

I flagged this to the manager only to get “are you trying to tell me I don’t know how to run my restaurant?”. Tip: Giving a couple of free popadoms away to a couple’s table delayed by 10min or so may work, but that method doesn’t scale to a table of 10 with an hour of wait.

We agreed to leave and pay for what we’d had (receipt attached) at which point the manager said “it’s not McDonalds” and became quite rude.

Note: I’ve family in the trade, have grown up eating in all sorts of Indian restaurants and 110% am not the sort of person to complain and kick up a stink (certainly not to get freebies etc as I’ll always pay for what I’ve had) but service this evening was unsatisfactory.

Likely response from the restaurant: “We took your order within an hour” Yes but that was after us asking a couple of times

“All our food is cooked fresh, it’s not McDonald” Starters after 1.5 hours weren’t fresh. Why have confidence the mains would be any different?

“We were unexpectedly busy” Parties of 10+ don’t just walk up, so someone has accepted the bookings. Likewise you don’t have to accept takeaways more and more takeaways when you know you’re struggling.

“The starters were fine and not bland” Table full of people with very mixed tastes and palettes all thought their starters were bland.

“We gave you some free popadoms” Doesn’t buy you another hour to...

Absolutely zero understanding of allergies. I have coeliac disease and so cannot eat gluten. I asked the waiter if I could look at the allergen menu, and he said he'd never heard of it (fair enough, he may have been new... but it gets better).

Two other members of staff came over and told me they could tell me whether a dish was suitable. I asked if the third member of staff knew what gluten even was. "Yeah, it's wheat and flour." I told him there were four things I couldn't eat - flour is a generic term, and some flours I can safely consume (e.g. cornflour). Barley, rye, oats and wheat contain gluten.

He continued to tell me that he knew what was in all the dishes. By the end of our somewhat heated discussion, I asked him to name the four things I couldn't eat. He got three of them - an improvement on his previous score of one.

I made it very clear that not having an allergen menu is breaking the law. Apparently the owner has been off for two weeks and probably has the allergen menu at home. Not much use there though, is it?

From what I remember from my pre-coeliac days, the food is okay. However, I cannot rate the restaurant higher than one star because with their very laid back (and illegal) approach to allergens, they will one day kill someone.

I had to leave the five other guests who had travelled from around Yorkshire and head home alone. I've never been so mortified to have coeliac disease. I understand that sometimes my choices may be limited, and that's fine - I'm not a fussy eater, and I've always found something I can enjoy. But I'm not prepared to play roulette with my health in a restaurant that thinks the law doesn't...

Please read full review as it went way, way down hill. So pleased to find Bengal Brasserie delivers, we use the Burley, Leeds restaurant and WOW its awesome perfection. We have ordered for several weeks now, our first couple of orders I found the chicken tikka starter not quite right so explored other things, have had the tikka since with the mixed starter and was please to find it had improved 100%. Everything is delicious, the mains can be spicy but if you message you prefer it milder they will adapt it. Highly recommended, you will not be disappointed. Thank you Bengal Brasserie

Addition 1/12/23 So good start obviously but over the past 12 months the food quality has gone down and the delivery time got longer. They have a 1 hour timer when you place an order but after originally beating that it got closer then the hour was a norm, not a problem as you allow for it but recently it's gone over the hour. This evening I phoned the restaurant after 90 minutes for an update, she apologised and said the delivery guy had already left with the order but traffic was bad on Kirkstall Rd, a quick google showed traffic to be lighter then usual, it finally arrived after 2 hours so I asked the driver if it was likely to still be warm and he said he had only just collected it? Anyway we received our food, cold and not up to their original standards. Personally I'm going to delete the app and never order again + not much point visiting the restaurant when someone clearly lied to me. Thank you for taking the time to read my review, if you still order you can't blame me if your disappointed...