Abd el Wahab — Restaurant in London

Appalling in every sense of the word. خدمة تعيسة والاكل يلعب النفس والمكان وسخ يعني لا تجون و تعكرون مزاجكم!! Being an Arab that has spent most of her life in London we have been to numerous Lebanese restaurants in my lifetime. This has been the worst experience that I have my suspicions this cannot be authentic Lebanese. My general experience with Lebanese restaurants has been that the staff are usually welcoming and even if things are overpriced, they make sure they make you feel looked after and it is well deserved.

Unfortunately, it seems that on Christmas Day 2021 fate had planned for us to end up at Abd El Wahab as it is always difficult finding a place to eat with availability on Christmas Day in London. We are a family of 7 and after finding our favourite cafe closing early at 6pm we drove to Belgravia to find Abd El Wahab open and not busy and managed to conveniently park right outside the restaurant. I walked in to ask if they had availability for 7 of us and I could see that half of the restaurant was empty and yet we were told to “wait while I check if there is availability” and initially we were told there is nothing available and just before walking out suddenly something could be done and one of the empty tables was designated to us.

As we walked to the table, the floor was disgustingly filthy as of not cleaned for weeks. The table and chairs had crumbs all over (all these were red flags that should have made us walk out but when you’re hungry and not wanting to cook something yourself you are inclined to accept matters!).

The waiter was rude and had despicable manners. Shocking for a Lebanese restaurant when we are used to warm welcomes and excellent service and this raised our suspicions about the authenticity of this “Lebanese” restaurant. The decor is not Lebanese, service not Lebanese, food was far from Lebanese as it was bland and burnt. Portions were small and it was so disappointing that there was no flavour at all, it was as if the chef was blindly making the dishes or they had someone who does not know how to cook! Overall, my advice would be to AVOID this restaurant. Save your mood and money and go enjoy...

I dined here on a snowy evening in March with a couple of food friends. We were given a quiet table where we were able to enjoy our conversation with great service. We had a mixture of starter plates including the quinoa tabuleh salad. The food was amazing the desert that we shared was delicious & I certainly wanted to come back for more.

Determined to have another meal here I decided to bring my husband for lunch. The experience on this occasion was not as delightful. The service was unorganised with 2 waitresses tending our table & consequently getting our requests mixed up. The tabouleh salad was not fresh, over cooked & over lemoned the whole thing tasted stale. The mixed grill we ordered was limited but tasted ok & the desert was served with out of the tub chocolate ice cream versus the home made sahleb ice cream we had on our previous experience & is described as such in the menu. It was clear they have different chefs in the evening versus the one they had for lunch that day. When I spoke to the waiter, realising I'm not middle eastern he tried to fob me off with comments like this is the way it comes & continued to sell me on it. Which not only insulated my intelligence but disappointed me immensly since this was the main motivation for our revisit. The manager was very nonchalant about the whole situation. Disappointed & irritated we paid our bill & left

In conclusion this place ... better for evening dinner than lunch where you have a better chance of a...

Let's start with the good: the food is nice. Not great, but good. Would I come here again? Not of my own volition.

An acquaintance had organised a small lunch of five and reserved a table under his name. When I arrived and mentioned the reservation, three staff members got involved, but none of them was seemingly able to work out which of the tables to take me to. They settled me on my own at a table of five and left me there (without a menu). Because they had seemed so disorganised, I had another look around the room and spotted my acquaintance at another table, so I went over to join him. Something similar happened to the other two people joining us. It seems strange to me that they seemingly could not work out which table the reservation was associated with.

We could see from the other tables that they seemed to have ordered a set menu. This was not offered to us and when we inquired about it, the waitress said that they don't have one. She asked the manager to come over and he said that they do, in fact, have a set menu and proceeded to explain it to us. The menu was £50 per person and it seemed like the quantity would be too much, so we ordered à la carte.

Overall, the experience left a lot to be desired and the food did not make up for that. You can get great Libanese food on Edgeware Road for less money and with better service (although the setting will not...