Caraway — Restaurant in London

We recently visited Caraway Gants Hill for my mum’s 60th birthday, expecting a memorable experience from a restaurant we once enjoyed. We had been there over six years ago, and back then, Caraway had a well-earned reputation for excellent food and attentive service. Unfortunately, this visit was a complete disaster from start to finish.

The evening started with painfully slow service, and our food arrived at completely different times, making it impossible to enjoy a meal together as a family. Several of us ordered dosa, which came out cold and without the sambal daal it was supposed to have. My mum, the guest of honor, was served last, which felt careless and disappointing on such an important occasion.

Earlier in the night, a waiter spilled a drink on my young nephew. Instead of taking responsibility, the manager on duty—Salek—tried to shift the blame onto my nephew. Salek, who seemed inexperienced and overwhelmed, struggled to manage the team effectively, leading to repeated mistakes. Drinks were made incorrectly several times and had to be sent back, and it was clear that the staff was poorly organized and unable to meet basic service standards.

The worst part was that my husband ended up with food poisoning from our meal, which is unacceptable. We will be taking this further with health and safety authorities. Although the restaurant offered a 20% discount, it was insufficient to make up for the ruined celebration and the health risk we faced.

Caraway Gants Hill has clearly declined in quality and no longer lives up to its past reputation. What used to be a reliable choice for excellent food and service is now a place we will avoid, and we cannot recommend it to anyone who values quality, professionalism, or even basic food safety. Our family left feeling let down, frustrated, and...

We had booked a table for 14 to celebrate my husbands 60th birthday. Well it was the worst place we could have gone to. I had requested a particular table, which we did not get, we waited 25 mins at which time I had to go to the bar and request for someone to take our first drinks order. Then waited another 15 mins to get them. Then had to find someone to take the order for the starter. We requested a second drinks order which never arrived and when I went to the bar it was still being prepared. By now we were very fed up with the service . I offered to take the drinks as they were clearly not coping but was told no. Finally we got them. By now my husband’s birthday celebration was turned into a waiting game to see what else could go wrong. We had to clear our own table of the glasses and empty bottles as the main meal was about to come out. The one star I gave was for the food as it’s was nice. UNFORTUNATELY when one of my guests put. A spoonful of the lamb curry in his mouth a 3” inch piece of wire was there along with the lamb. That just topped it for the night. When I asked to speak to the manager her apologised but there was another member of staff who would not accept that it should not have happened. Excuses were being given instead of taking it on board and just assuring us that they will deal with it. At one point he said it’s a restaurant sometimes it can happen. My point being it is a restaurant and this is why you should not have a wire like object in the curry !!!!!!WOULD NOT RECOMMEND AT THE PRESENT TIME UNTIL MANAGEMENT SORT OUT THE STAFF SHORTAGE AND TRAINING THE ONES THEY HAVE IN...

We came to Caraway on Sunday 30th May. We have been a few times in the past, but since lockdown this was the first time we came out. I have to say this was a real disappointment. We got seated, on a really disgusting sticky table where the paper menu even stuck to it leaving a print on the table. There were flies all by the window. We sat there for 15 mins before I had to say to someone at the bar, if someone was going to serve us? Half of the drinks we wanted were not even available. The menu itself has definitely been cut down so there was hardly anything to choose from. We did finally order and the amount of food for the prices being charged is completely absurd as there were 4 small paneer tikka, there was mogo that barely fed one person, and the chicken tikka was completely dry and not sizzling at all. There was nobody to complain to as finding a waiter/waitress was ridiculously difficult. The bill ended up coming up to £84 and we just wanted to get out of there, totally left hungry! Honestly I have no idea what everyone was doing, but the restaurant was not full at all, there were like 3 tables. Also on top of that there were tables of more than 6 which is against the government guidelines, but I'm guessing you guys just want the restaurant at capacity. I'm sorry to have to say this, but we will never be coming back to caraway. This was the worse experience ever and totally disgusting when during this time everything should be pristine. So in summary, your service was terrible, the prices have gone up, the menu has gone down and your portions...