Tharavadu - Authentic Kerala Restaurant in Leeds — Restaurant in Leeds

Thanks for the warm welcome to the Google Community and making my first review special and memorable.

This is a reply to your justification on my review that I posted and I also don’t have the time and need to reply to you, but this is for all the other people who are planning or wanting to come to your restaurant for some good time and to help them not to end up like us.

I do really appreciate that you have squeezed me in from 6.30 to 8.00 pm on that day from the bottom of my heart. Even though as per your claim that I have “begged” to one of your staff for a table, still it doesn’t cut out the fact that we are guests in your restaurant and have the right to receive the same treatment as the others who booked “months ago”. We also pay the same amount as others and also pay for the time we spent in your restaurant and yet it is so disturbing that we have to face the mistreatment by your staff.

I do realise it is a busy restaurant and we have got a time frame from 6.30 to 8.00 pm. But there is two ways to convey the message to hurry up to order the main course. One in a polite way and the other is your waiter’s way and I am totally against the second. We have come to your restaurant to have some good time with family, and getting mistreated because we “begged” to get a seat is totally unacceptable.

And on the swearing part, I have also got plenty of friends and we also call each other by names and all. But we will only do that considering the environment around us especially when there is elderly and young children and I think we all are matured enough to realise that unlike you just doing that in a busy restaurant with all the people in it assuming that the people around you won’t even understand. If you don’t want to change your ideology , its totally upto you and I respect your decision.

Most of the restaurants when they get a 1 star review, they like to learn from that and make necessary changes accordingly unlike you, who tries posting arrogant comments with the confidence that no one else is above you and claiming all the negative reviews are fake. Giving an honest review is not always fake. You have told me all the incidents that happened that day and you clearly know what was the real problem. The fact that you don’t even accept and realise your mistake blows me away. How can you justify that being the “Best Restaurant in Town”?.

Continue cooking more “flavourful” dishes and “stories” so that you can degrade an honest review and question our credibility. If it helps your business out, it’s absolutely fine for me and continue justifying your mismanagement and poor behaviour.

On the last note, if I were to give a piece advice to you it will be “treat others the same way you want them...

So disappointed with this place. Went on Saturday the 8th of Feb 2025 for my brothers birthday, a family meal. We had both seen Gary Eats Review this place and couldn’t wait to try it. Clearly Gary isn’t critical enough.

It’s just your typical pretentious, style over substance place. The menu reads more like a travel brochure than a food menu. Transport yourself to …. We are in Leeds just describe the dish.

For starters we had the Paneer, king prawns, fish and the beef. All were disappointing. Three king prawns for a tenner, every flavour seemed to contain too much I think fenugreek, could be wrong which I think gives everything like a burnt undertone of flavour. Fish was soggy and the beef just lacking even basic seasoning.

We had to wait for the paneer dish and as we were still eating the waitress started to take plates away we were still eating from. Then they started to bring the cutlery for our mains again while we were still eating we had to say can you just give us a few moments please.

On to the mains. We had lamb chops, the menu proudly telling us these were Gary Eats favourite. We also had the lamb and spinach and two chicken dishes. The lamb chops were so over cooked it was untrue, three dry chops for £21. The spinach dish was watery and again and that burnt flavour. The chicken dishes were the best but these were nothing spectacular at all. Even the chapatis were a little greasy, my brother ordered and another one of their breads but sent it back as it was just a mess.

In fairness to them we complained and they did knock off the price of two of the lamb dishes and the cost of the bread so what was going to be a ridiculously large bill ended up being not too bad. I appreciate food is subjective but we’ve eaten curries all over the world and this in our opinion is poor. Wouldn’t dream of returning. Even the staff weren’t...

From Wonderful to Woeful: A Deeply Disappointing Experience

It is with genuine disappointment that I write this review. Theravadu was once a go-to for a guaranteed wonderful meal and excellent service. However, our recent visit was arguably the worst restaurant experience we've had, marking a sad decline from what it used to be.

The problems began immediately. The atmosphere was chaotic, with staff seeming overwhelmed and disorganised. After a long wait to order, the real frustration began. We waited for over an hour for our food, only to realise our order likely hadn't been entered into the system, as we saw parties who arrived after us being served their meals.

When we politely inquired, we were met with a blunt and unhelpful reply: "Your food will be here within 15 minutes." This promise felt empty, and indeed, the food arrived just 3 minutes later, proving it had been ready but somehow forgotten or missed.

When we questioned why tables that arrived later were served first, the explanation—that it "depends on the food you order"—was delivered with such an arrogant and dismissive tone that it was the final straw. The complete lack of empathy or apology was shocking.

We felt so unwelcome and frustrated that we had to cancel our remaining order, pay for what we'd already been served, and leave. The entire experience was utterly deflating.

I did speak to the front-of-house manager on the way out. His explanation was that previous experienced staff members have been moved to the new Victoria Gate branch. While this explains the lack of training and chaos, it does not excuse the appalling customer service and arrogant attitude we received.

Until Theravadu manages to properly train new staff and restore its standards of service, I cannot recommend anyone visit. The magic is gone, replaced by chaos and indifference....