Cabana — Restaurant in London

Disappointing experience to be honest...

It didn't feel quite right as soon as we were seated. They sat us down under a table with a broken overhead light, despite other tables being available (and no visible reservation signs). They did provide us with 2 small touch lights for the table, but they were quite dim and we had to take turns using it to read the menu.

Once we were seated they walked off and took quite a while to come back and take our drinks order. Once they did, it took even longer to bring our drinks to us (granted, one was a cocktail, but the rest was 2 pints and a jug of water). At this point we weren't too bothered really, just quite thirsty!

We did finally get our drinks, and ordered our food shortly after, which was the first real disappointment - at no point did they bother to let us know they were out of the ribs. It can't be helped so we hardly blame them for the stock, but that was our main decider on where to eat and my mum didn't really want anything else, so once we'd all said what we wanted, my mum asked for the ribs and was THEN told they're out. She felt the pressure to decide what else to order, with the server just sort of stood there, so just picked something at random (regrettably)

Starters were really good, tiny portion but tasted great so thought nothing of it (duck tacos).

Somewhere between starters and mains they came and did last orders for drinks, which we questioned, seeing as the place didn't close until 11pm and it wasn't even 10pm yet, but again, wasn't a huge issue.

And then the mains came...my 'medium' beef burger was absolutely not medium (why bother asking?), the chicken 'skewers' were not skewered onto anything and for £20, embarrassing small, the pulled pork hot pot was hot, but tasted like meat in water, and just to top it off, the side of golden rice was actually WORSE than the microwavable ones (overcooked, cold and hard). It wasn't all bad, the chicken breast was lovely, the chips were awesome and my burger was nice enough, just not what I asked for and absolutely not worth £20.

As if this wasn't bad enough, the music stopped mid way through us eating and left an uncomfortable atmosphere, and the final straw was one of the servers coming over, interrupting us eating, and asking us to pay the bill now so they can close the till? A reminder...the bar was supposed to close at 11pm, it had just about hit 10pm at this point and they said they were closing in 30 minutes...bizarre!

I worked in a bar, I know it's not uncommon to close early when it's unusually quiet. HOWEVER, it was far from quiet, plenty of people were still eating and some were actually still walking in wanting to order.

At this point we were so fed up we just wanted to finish up and leave, the bill came to well over £100 for the 4 of us, which wouldn't have been an issue if it was a pleasurable experience, but it absolutely was not.

Servers weren't unpleasant at all but visibly did not want to be there.

All round,...

Honestly I don't understand how a restaurant would serve spoilt chicken

And spoilt avocado it's disgusting

And they were trying to convince me that it was good .like I asked them to smell it or even eat it .I cook chicken and I can tell when something is rather bad 👎and there were other guest present opposite me who even said " I loved how you stood your ground and kept explaining "

Please how is that ok in the first place .a customer complained a food is bad . Maybe I should have involved health and safety or get on social media

The avocado in the salad was bad and I was told oh it's just three tiny bits so I can remove it .

Now I am African,I am wondering if I was a white woman or man if the waiter can make such a Ludacris statement tho .

I stood my ground ,the kitchen was already closed

The only excuse I can give is it was late so yes the food can spoil however are they trying to poison customers yuck

And offering dead table water when we know the tap water in the UK is rather hard .

Honestly do better and it's disgusting.

Very horrible experience, deserves no star . This happened 20th evening

Yes I apologize to the manager and asked hope I didn't stress her out cos she is a manager after all and I was been nice ,I only did this because she apologized to me and started to take initiative and this was after several conversations. However next time I won't be doing that to anyone again . I clearly do not need to raise my concerns multiple times before it is taken seriously ,that's not ok .which is why I added the race comment because that's what it's giving .

And next time when a bit of the meal is bad expecially salad it should be removed immediately, everything could have been contaminated .

As for the fresh ingredients you are saying you always have ,please ensure you do quality control all the time ,it was evening the chicken smelt and tasted bad ,I asked the manager to smell it which she refused or taste it as well and she said the kitchen was already close .

So honestly in a much as gesture was given or fresh avocado next time when a customer says something is bad you remove it and...

A disastrous visit. We visited on mid afternoon bank holiday Monday and found the restaurant quiet. Despite it being quiet, our order wasn’t taken for quite some time. When we did try to order, we were informed there were menu items unavailable - something it would have been handy to know when we were first seated. One of the items in question was guac. How a restaurant can stock itself so badly that it can’t provide one of its staples is always surprising. The server who conveyed the information was unapologetic and frankly seemed quite disinterested. We took a couple of minutes to revise our order but weren’t offered another chance to do so until asking. Lots of servers were standing around but seemed determined not to attend to tables. Eventually we had our order taken. To the restaurant’s credit, our drinks arrived almost immediately. The food took over 40 minutes. Not even our starters came out in that time. Other tables who had arrived and ordered after us were served and one even left in the time we waited. We were tempted to give up and leave because not one server came to check on us or gave us an update in that time. In the end I flagged someone down and asked them to go check. They didn’t return but a couple of minutes later our starter (pardon peppers) arrived. Our mains arrived a few minutes later. We each head a £15 portion of chicken which wasn’t served on the skewer as expected. It wasn’t worth the money. Mine was over cooked and therefore a little dry. At this point I couldn’t be bothered to complain and potentially wait an hour for a replacement so I just ate it. The cassava was nice. The fries were fine, nothing to write home about. Overall the food was adequate. Overpriced for the quality but about as expected by London standards. My real complaint is the staff. They were disinterested to the point of rude. I used to love Cabana. I haven’t been in a few years and won’t be back if this is the...